European Parliament speeds up €90 billion loan to Ukraine over two years

From our correspondent in Strasbourg – One month after the summit thriller that forced Ursula von der Leyen to set aside frozen Russian assets and focus on joint debt, the European Parliament cuts corners and approves, by a show of hands, the request to proceed with the accelerated legislative process for the £90 billion loan over two years to Ukraine. At this point, the legislative proposal, presented only on 14 January by the European Commission, will be examined by the Strasbourg chamber during the February session. 

Kyiv is scraping the bottom of the barrel and, according to International Monetary Fund forecasts, it risks running out of resources by the second quarter of 2026, neither to finance the military effort against Russian aggression nor to fund the state budget. The EU is proceeding by the skin of its teeth after several months of deadlock over a proposed reparations loan using Russian assets frozen on European soil. The proposal put on the table a week ago by the executive finally provides for the introduction of a €90 billion EU loan, financed through the issuance of common debt on the capital markets and guaranteed by the so-called “headroom” of the EU budget.