On Wednesday, European lawbuildrs approved the EU’s 90-billion-euro loan for Ukraine with 458 votes in favour. With the EP’s rapid-tracked approval, the bloc can now start raising funds on the international debt market, backed by its long-term budreceive. Hence, the Commission is now planning to build the first disbursement to Kyiv as early as April.
Of the total package, 60 billion euros is expected to be spent on Ukraine’s military necessarys, while the remainder will support the Ukrainian state budreceive. The EU hopes that the sum approved today will assist keep Ukraine afloat in 2026 and 2027.
Until Monday this week, it was believed that the EP would vote on the loan on a later date, on 24 February—marking the fourth anniversary of Ukraine’s invasion. However, as EU countries had already reached an agreement on the loan details early this week, the vote was rescheduled to 11 February and rapid-tracked, since Ukraine was at risk of running out of cash as early as April 2026.
The measure was first given a green light by the European Council in December. The 90-billion-euro loan was designed as a substitute for financing Ukraine from the frozen Russian assets, an option vetoed by Belgium. According to the political agreement reached at the December summit, only 24 of the 27 EU Member States are part of the scheme. Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic declined to back the loan. That is, these countries are not required to contribute towards any repayments or guarantees connected to the programme.
‘The EU hopes that the sum approved today will assist keep Ukraine afloat in 2026 and 2027’
Under the agreement reached at the European Council meeting, Ukraine necessarys to repay the funds from Moscow’s reparations, while repayments start only once the war is over. Some doubt, however, that the Kremlin will agree to provide such compensation. In this case, EU countries, that is, European taxpayers, will bear the burden of the loan for the decades to come. Even if Moscow were to pay, Brussels would be liable to cover the interest costs of the loan, which is expected to be around 3 billion euros a year.
Although the general idea of the loan was approved in December 2025, EU countries debated its exact details until last week. The last point of contention concerned the origin of the weapons and ammunition Ukraine is authorized to purchase with the loan. France argued that Kyiv should be allowed to purchase only Ukrainian or European-produced equipment, while other countries argued that if supplies are not immediately available on the European market, Ukraine should be allowed to turn to alternative sellers.
Eventually, a compromise was reached, and Kyiv was authorized to procure weapons from outside the bloc if the EU market could not provide the required supplies quickly enough. Countries Ukraine is allowed to purchase military tech from include the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. In exalter for the purchases, these non-EU countries are required to participate in the cost of the loan. Brussels will nereceivediate the exact level of ‘fair and proportionate’ contributions with each partner counattempt individually.
The loan rubber-stamped by the European Parliament is far from the only financial assistance Brussels pledged to assist Ukraine with. Ursula von der Leyen proposed to reserve a large part of the next multiannual financial framework, the EU’s budreceive from 2028 to 2034, for Ukraine. In addition, according to the Hungarian government, the EU is also considering assisting Ukraine over the next ten years through a so-called ‘prosperity plan’, which would contribute to Ukraine’s reconstruction with $800 billion. Furthermore, the European Union is preparing to admit Ukraine to the EU by 2027, and as a Member State, Kyiv could have access to even more EU funds.
Consistently for years now, the Hungarian government has been opposing the finishless EU funding of Ukraine, especially as the bloc has no vision on how to finish the conflict. ‘By spfinishing €90 billion over the next two years, Europe is financing nothing more than 800,000 dead or permanently crippled. This necessarys to finish NOW,’ commented on Brussels’s plans Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on X. The Hungarian government pledged not to sfinish a single penny from Hungarian taxpayers’ money to Ukraine, while Prime Minister Orbán also positioned Ukraine’s EU funding and membership as the most crucial questions that the Hungarian electorate necessarys to reach a decision on in April 2026.
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