The European Union is ready to compensate financially for the United States' exit from a long-negotiated multilateral deal to provide Ukraine with a $50 billion loan to help support its fight against Russia, a top Polish official said.

Speaking at an event marking the incoming Polish presidency of the Council of the EU on Wednesday, Paweł Karbownik, Poland’s deputy finance minister, said “there is a risk that [US President] Donald Trump will pull out of the $50 billion agreement.”

It comes as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson dismissed on Wednesday the outgoing Joe Biden administration’s request to include $24 billion in Ukraine-related aid in a spending bill Congress needs to pass by Dec. 20.

“We have a newly elected president and we’re going to wait and take the new commander-in-chief’s direction on all of that so I don’t expect any Ukraine funding to come up now,” Johnson said.

After many months of negotiations, G7 countries agreed in October to provide a $50 billion loan to Ukraine that is structured to be repaid with interest derived from more than €200 billion of immobilized Russian assets in Western control.

According to the agreement — which was struck before the U.S. election on Nov. 5 — Brussels and Washington are set to put up $20 billion each, with the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan contributing the remaining share.

While the U.S. originally expressed concerns about the financial viability of the loan, the Biden administration eventually pledged to contribute $20 billion in an attempt to corner Trump into continuing American support for Ukraine.

Given the level of uncertainty, Karbownik urged Trump to make his intentions known sooner rather than later to allow the EU time to create a contingency plan.

If the worst-case scenario were to happen, Karbownik added, “we’ll make provisions as the EU to ensure that the $50 billion goes to Ukraine regardless of Trump.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen previously signaled the EU alone could provide up to €35 billion if the U.S. was unable to commit to its share.

The EU has since indicated it could scale up its financing of Ukraine by using the might of the bloc's €1.2 trillion seven-year budget as collateral.

Brussels, however, cannot go beyond an end-of-year deadline to issue the loan, according to its own budget rules.

Karbownik said that the EU’s final amount “will be decided by the end of the year.”

Politico

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