EU representatives called on member states to be ambitious in helping Ukraine. (File)
Knigswinter, Germany:
Germany’s finance minister today ruled out any joint European Union (EU) borrowing to help cover the huge costs of rebuilding war-torn Ukraine, after the idea was voiced by top European officials.
After chairing the G7 talks in Germany, during which the countries pledged aid to Ukraine worth nearly $ 20 billion (19 billion euros), Christian Lindner said there would be no repeat of the EU’s iconic fund after the pandemic known as the “Next Generation”. . financed by total debt.
“If there is an opportunity to do something like the next-generation EU again, the answer must be no. It was a one-off opportunity,” Lindner told reporters in Königswinter.
Earlier this week, senior European Union officials called on member states to be ambitious in helping Ukraine rebuild after the war, possibly using the pandemic fund as a model.
As the war is still raging, Ukraine’s recovery needs are unknown, but the European Commission estimates that the damage has already cost hundreds of billions of euros.
“Sooner or later there will come a time when we will have to look at funding on a European scale, as we did for Covid,” Commission Vice-President Frans Zimmermans said in Brussels on Wednesday.
In a document examining ways to help the EU to Ukraine, the Commission said the rescue of Ukraine could be paid for by additional contributions to existing EU programs and an increase in the EU budget.
But, as the saying goes, “given the scale of the loans that are likely to be needed, fundraising on behalf of the EU or with national guarantees from Member States is one option being considered.”
The creation of the EU’s next-generation € 800 billion fund needed to overcome deep restraint on the part of so-called “savings” member states such as the Netherlands and Denmark.
Aware of the obstacles a new common debt proposal may face, an EU official said the commission’s proposals remain deliberately vague.
“We invite member states to play with ideas and see if there is a desire to go and move on,” the official said.
(Except for the headline, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and published from a syndicated tape.)
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