Europe approved a 35 billion euro package for Ukraine before the US elections

Ukraine breathes as it tries its hand at the catastrophe that the eventuality of Donald Trump’s return to the White House would entail. The American magnate, favorable to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Ukraine’s military aggressor, would suspend military and financial aid to kyiv. The ambassadors of the 27 member states of the European Union This Wednesday in Brussels they placed the first support for the Ukraine aid building resist without the United States. It will be impossible to replace military aid, but Europe believes it can sustain Ukraine economically without help from Washington.

The ambassadors closed the necessary pact so that, starting in January, Ukraine will begin to receive in tranches up to 35 billion euros from the European Union in the next five years. The European Parliament has already given its approval to the pact: 7 billion a year should be enough for the country to withstand the economic damage of the war. Legally it is a loan, but Ukraine will not have to pay it back.

The Europeans froze in 2022, when Russia attacked its neighbor, more than 300,000 million euros from the Russian Central Bank that were deposited in European banks. That money is confiscated in a Belgian financial company. The money is invested and the benefits have been piling up there. From now on they will be used to begin repaying those loans. Thus, Russia will end up paying the loan to Ukraine.

The 35 billion are part of a larger package, of about 50 billion, promised by the G7. The rest, up to 15 billion, is supposed to come from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan.

But the Europeans were unable to reach an agreement yesterday, due to the veto of the Hungary of ultranationalist Viktor Orban, Putin’s best ally in the European Union. that the sanctions regime against Russia should be renewed every six months (what is usual in the European Union with all sanctions regimes) every three years. It was a demand from Washington to join the multimillion-dollar loan. Now the American part is up in the air.

Orban’s veto is explained, and he himself has explained it, because the Hungarian wants to wait to see what happens in the US elections. On Tuesday in Strasbourg, France, where the European Parliament is holding its weekly plenary session this week, the Hungarian premier said he would uncork bottles of champagne to celebrate his long-awaited Trump victory.

The Hungarian Finance Minister, Mijali Varga, had said it very clearly on Tuesday in Luxembourg: “We believe that this issue, the extension of Russian sanctions, It must be decided after the US elections.”

And he added: “We have to see in what direction the future Administration will go on this matter. You can see it in the election campaign. “There are two directions to solve this problem: one for peace and one for war.” Hungary’s argument is that Orban, like Trump, seeks peace. Which for them would be done by not delivering more weapons to Ukraine and allowing Russia to conquer its neighbor. Ukraine would disappear as a sovereign entity. The peace of the cemeteries.

European governments They also approved on Tuesday a new sanctions regime against Russia. All those responsible for what Europe considers “hybrid threats” will be sanctioned. According to the European Chancellor, the Spanish-Argentine Josep Borrell, “destabilizing actions against the European Union, its member states and its partners have a cost.”

For Europeans, these threats are interference in their electoral processes, attempts to alter the proper functioning of their democratic institutions, sabotage of their economic activities or its services of public interest, as well as its critical infrastructures. Also the use of disinformation and manipulation of information maliciously, from Russia or through Russian agents in Europe, who are often nationals.