Dutch PM “extremely satisfied” with €90 billion loan for Ukraine

EU leaders have agreed to provide Ukraine with a €90 billion interest-free loan, a deal Dutch prime minister Dick Schoof said would allow the country to continue both its economic recovery and its military defence.

Schoof said he was “extremely satisfied” with the agreement reached at an EU summit in Brussels, despite the Netherlands’ traditional reluctance to support joint European borrowing.

“The most important thing is that the €90 billion is available. That means Ukraine can move forward, economically and militarily,” he said.

The loan required unanimous backing from all EU member states. Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic opposed it, but a deal was reached in which they did not block the plan and were promised protection from any financial fallout.

Schoof had pushed for the use of frozen Russian assets to finance the loan, but said several countries considered the legal and financial risks too great. He said Ukraine would nevertheless be “extremely happy” with the outcome, even though Kyiv had preferred the use of Russian funds.

Hundreds of billions of euros belonging to the Russian central bank remain frozen within the EU, Schoof said, and could still be used in the future. “They remain available for reparations by Russia to Ukraine,” he said.

Belgium had been cautious about plans involving Russian assets, as much of the money is held in Belgian accounts.

Belgian prime minister Bart De Wever said the decision meant that “Ukraine and Europe have won”. Failure to agree financial support would have been “a total disaster”, he said. “We would not only have abandoned Ukraine, but ourselves. Leaving Brussels divided would have cost Europe its geopolitical relevance.”

German chancellor Friedrich Merz also welcomed the outcome, “These funds are sufficient to cover the military and budgetary needs of Ukraine for the two years to come,” Merz told new agency AP. He said the frozen assets will remain blocked until Russia has paid war reparations to Ukraine