The Council of the European Union has approved the payment of €5 billion to Ukraine to cover its reconstruction costs. This is part of a previously agreed loan of €9 billion, that the EU provides partly from its own budget and partly from international capital markets and, will also finance the interest expenses which is unprecedented.
In connection with all this my question is: would it not be advisable, for the time being, not to give money directly to Ukraine for reconstruction, but to support EU members which accept Ukrainian refugees to look after them on these funds? This would be a reasonable solution, both in the light of the steady increase in the number of Ukrainian war refugees and in the light of the state of the war in Ukraine.
I am not arguing against the future reconstruction of Ukraine — this is my homeland, which I love. But, I do not think it is timely to pay billions of euros to a country at war, which may lose part of its territory and part of its population in a fierce war and the end of it cannot yet be seen.
On the other hand, it is quite obvious that some EU member states face daily challenges as a result of the war in Ukraine, including the constantly growing influx of refugees and difficulties in obtaining gas, oil, gasoline and electricity, the prices of which are rising sharply.
I cannot ignore the fact that the latter problem, i.e. the problem with fuel supplies and rising prices, was caused by the European Union itself, with its completely wrong sanctions policy, which was initially aimed at punishing Russia.
The EU should pursue a much more sober policy than it is currently pursuing, as it is already clear where the current political thinking has led. While the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are hosting hundreds of thousands, or even millions of Ukrainian refugees, they are also plunging into an energy crisis.
Bureaucrats in Brussels do not seem to understand that these countries need additional resources to improve their border infrastructure, raise the standards of refugee reception centers, medical care system and so on.
With regard to all of this, the EU, if it wants a more pragmatic approach, should provide much more resources to countries such as Poland, Romania, Hungary, Czechia, since they receive more refugees every day at their borders and on their territories than anywhere else in the EU. I believe that the EUR 5 billion or even a fraction of this sum of money currently allocated to Ukraine could be used to finance the expenses of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe spent for looking after refugees. This would not be a gift for its own sake, but would ultimately contribute to the well-being of the refugees.
The question remains: if such a large amount of money will be paid to Ukraine, which is not part of the EU, how will certain EU members — which governments under the pressure of necessity have already introduced protective measures such as temperature limits in state institutions or petrol caps — heat their refugee reception centres…?
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