{"id":440152,"date":"2025-11-17T18:36:54","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T17:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/11\/17\/von-der-leyen-mette-sul-tavolo-tre-opzioni-per-garantire-allucraina-130-miliardi-nel-prossimo-biennio\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T19:28:27","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T18:28:27","slug":"von-der-leyen-puts-forward-three-options-to-guarantee-ukraine-130-billion-over-next-two-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/11\/17\/von-der-leyen-puts-forward-three-options-to-guarantee-ukraine-130-billion-over-next-two-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Von der Leyen puts forward three options to guarantee Ukraine 130 billion over next two years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – A month ago, the EU heads of state and government wavered in the face of Ukraine’s monstrous economic needs over the next two years\u00a0and\u00a0requested<\/a> that the European Commission\u00a0<\/span>study a range of options to support it. Today (17 November),\u00a0in a letter sent to the capitals, Ursula von der Leyen put forward three options<\/strong>. First, she met<\/a> the Belgian Prime Minister, Bart De Wever<\/strong>, to try to convince him that the only way forward is to use<\/a> the frozen assets<\/strong> (mostly in Belgium) of the Russian Central Bank. The only option that would not burden national budgets already compromised after three years of conflict.<\/p>\n

According to estimates of the International Monetary Fund\u2014and assuming the end of the war by the end of 2026\u2014Kyiv currently has\u00a0to\u00a0cover<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0a gap of around \u20ac135.7 billion for the next two years<\/strong>. A gap that must be filled immediately, because Ukraine must be equipped to “fight tonight,” emphasised von der Leyen. In addition to being timely\u2014the decision must be taken by the end of the year at the latest<\/strong>\u2014the financial support should be “highly concessional”, given Ukraine’s “current debt sustainability situation,” flexible, and distributed fairly among member states and with international partners.<\/p>\n

The first option\u2014the most straightforward\u2014would involve the member states paying bilateral subsidies to the Union<\/strong>, which in turn would provide non-repayable support to Ukraine. An option\u2014the Commission points out\u2014that “does not entail new joint liabilities and does not require additional guarantees or compensation,” but that “has an immediate impact on the budgets of the Member States.” A minimum annual support target of \u20ac45 billion should be set, with the G7 partners contributing to finance the remaining needs. The respective impact for EU countries would be between 0.16 and 0.27 per cent of GDP per year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
From the back, Ursula von der Leyen, together with EU heads of state and government at the European Council [photo: European Council]<\/figcaption><\/figure>The alternative route is the tortuous one of resorting to joint debt<\/strong>.\u00a0This second option would consist of the “granting by the Union of a loan with limited recourse, financed by the Union through borrowing on the financial markets<\/strong>,”\u00a0as explained in the document sent to European chancelleries.<\/span>\u00a0A loan that Ukraine would repay only in the event of compensation from Russia, and which would be backed by “legally binding, unconditional, irrevocable and on-demand guarantees,” provided and distributed among the member states according to their Gross National Income (GNI). Capitals would have to pay back the interest<\/strong> and\u2014”in the spirit of burden-sharing”\u2014proportionately increase their contributions if any of the 27 decided to back out.<\/p>\n

Again, the interest to be paid by the Member States would “directly affect their deficit and debt<\/strong>.” Not to mention the guarantees themselves, which are also “likely” to burden national budgets. One way out would be for the loan to be guaranteed by the EU’s\u00a0<\/strong>budgetary leeway<\/b>, in which case “no such impact would be expected,” the Commission notes. To put \u20ac90 billion into the EU budget for the next two years, including related interest, it would be necessary to amend the Multiannual Financial Framework regulation, which currently “does not allow borrowing for a third country.”<\/p>\n

The barricades that several Member States would erect in the face of these two options make Brussels lean towards the third and last card, the ace up the sleeve, however risky it may be. It is a\u00a0loan<\/a>\u00a0financed with Russian state assets frozen on European soil, amounting<\/span>\u00a0to over \u20ac200 billion. The option has been under consideration by the EU executive’s legal experts for months: the EU would enter into a compulsory debt contract with central securities depositories holding Russian assets frozen in “several member states” at zero interest, and then lend the cash to Ukraine in several tranches. Kyiv would repay the loan only once the war is over and Russia has paid reparations<\/strong>. Only then would Brussels in turn repay the financial institutions.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Bart De Wever and Ursula von der Leyen at the Berlaymont building, headquarters of the European Commission, on 14 November 2025. (Photo by Nicolas TUCAT \/ AFP)(Photo by Nicolas TUCAT \/ AFP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is a slippery slope; the EU would risk “repercussions” if the loan were “wrongly perceived by others as a confiscation.” Not only legally, but also economically: “One cannot exclude that there are\u00a0potential knock-on effects, also for the financial markets<\/strong>,” von der Leyen again admitted, while reiterating that “the structure of this option guarantees full compliance with international law in all scenarios.”<\/p>\n

But above all, domestically, there is the strenuous opposition of Belgium, the country where\u00a0Euroclear, the company that holds some 185 billion belonging to Moscow<\/strong>,\u00a0is located and is already using the interest generated by these assets to support a separate \u20ac45 billion loan for Ukraine. The member states would ensure that the EU could repay Euroclear even without receiving any compensatory payments from Kyiv. “The exact scope of the risk coverage should be defined to\u00a0ensure the necessary protection of exposed member states<\/strong>, as well as sufficient certainty for other member states providing voluntary guarantees,” the paper points out.<\/p>\n

In addition, “in view of the necessary solidarity among Member States, the guarantees may also have to cover the costs and financial consequences arising from arbitral awards or other judicial decisions or proceedings against a Member State arising from the freezing of Russian sovereign assets.” And the loan to Ukraine “should be designed in a manner that preserves the financial stability of financial institutions holding the fixed assets.”<\/p>\n

Von der Leyen, and with her almost all the member states\u2014except those who are generally opposed to new financing for Ukraine\u2014are hoping to chip away at Belgian resistance, because for many chancelleries the only viable option is to call on the resources of the Russian Central Bank.\u00a0This is also because, unlike borrowing on the markets, the member states’ guarantees would in this case<\/span>\u00a0be considered “as contingent liabilities,” thus not affecting national debts<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bilateral subsidies, joint borrowing, or the use of frozen Russian assets. The latter is the alternative the Commission is banking on, the only one whose guarantees would not affect national budgets. But the Commission admits: “Potential knock-on effects, also for the financial markets”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7527,"featured_media":370175,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[27810,26096,27487,25803,30548],"class_list":["post-440152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-asset-congelati-and","tag-commissione-europea-en","tag-assistance-macro-financial-en","tag-russia-in-2","tag-ukraine-in-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440152"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":440155,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440152\/revisions\/440155"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}