Finance minister says country among “very large group” behind macro-financial aid package for 2023
Portugal “is in the very large group of countries” that supports the proposal of a macro-financial aid package to Ukraine for 2023 amounting to €18 billion, finance minister Fernando Medina has said in Brussels today.
Speaking to journalists at the end of meetings of finance ministers of the eurozone (Eurogroup, yesterday) and the European Union (Ecofin, today), Mr Medina noted that “in the meetings of these two days, we found a very broad convergence of European countries on the support package to Ukraine for 2023, amounting to €18 billion, which covers the financial needs of Ukraine for a year”.
Hungary has expressed reservations, but due to a “political framework” related to the blocking of disbursement of funds from the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP), Mr Medina is hopeful that the support to Ukraine will soon be agreed and see “the light of day”.
“The Commission’s proposal is a strong proposal because it responds to Ukraine’s needs for a significant period of one year, and it is also a very balanced proposal from the point of view of the burden that each member state will have to bear, and therefore Portugal is in the very wide group of countries that supports this Commission proposal, and we hope that it can soon see the light of day,” were the minister’s words.
At the formal press conference after the Ecofin Council, European Commission Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis confirmed that the EU executive will be presenting the concrete proposal on providing Kyiv with €18 billion (in the form of highly concessional loans) tomorrow.
Mr Dombrovskis said the aim was for the proposal to be approved by the Council (member states) and the European Parliament later this year so that the first disbursement can take place as early as January.
Source: LUSA
