Crisis base: will the EU be able to agree on a new loan for Ukraine
Countries that do not want to finance Ukraine may be exempt from participating in a new European loan for Kiev of € 45 billion, Izvestia found out. Earlier, the authorities of Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic announced that they did not want to be guarantors of the new loan. Germany insists that all EU countries help. At the same time, Brussels does not intend to stop military support for Ukraine during the negotiations, the European Parliament told Izvestia. These issues will be discussed at the EU summit in Dublin on November 12-13. Also, the EU will not abandon the sanctions pressure on Russia. According to the source, the draft of a new package of restrictions is still being prepared, but has not yet been submitted for consideration by the ambassadors of the bloc countries. Experts do not rule out that EU countries may hold a discussion in Dublin on the candidacy of a special envoy for dialogue with Russia, as they fear remaining outside the framework of the negotiation process to resolve the crisis in Ukraine.
EU Summit in Ireland
European leaders are gathering for an informal summit in Dublin on November 12-13. Although the main topic of the meeting is formally the development of artificial intelligence, the results of the negotiations between the Russian Federation, the United States and Ukraine will obviously come to the fore. The Irish summit consists of two parts: on November 12, there will be a meeting of the leaders of the European Political Community, which is larger than the EU and unites almost 50 countries. In particular, Vladimir Zelensky and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney are expected to arrive. An informal meeting of EU leaders only will take place the next day.
Difficult discussions are expected in Dublin. This spring, the EU approved a loan of €90 billion to Ukraine, which is divided into two parts: €45 billion this year, and another €45 billion in 2027. However, in October, Ukraine requested an additional €70 billion for next year. According to European Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis, the EC proposes the following scheme: to provide Kiev with another loan of €45 billion, and to ask for the remaining €25 billion from other countries-allies of Ukraine. Izvestia previously wrote that Brussels expects to receive the missing funds from Britain, Canada, Australia and Japan.
Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic refused to participate in the new loan. Budapest, Bratislava and Prague were not guarantors of the previous loan of €90 billion. However, this time such a position provoked the anger of Germany. Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he would block the adoption of the EU budget for 2027-2034 if all member states of the community did not participate in financing Ukraine.
On November 12-13, EU leaders will discuss financing Ukraine for next year, a European diplomatic source told Izvestia. According to him, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic may be exempted from participating in a new loan to Ukraine of €45 billion.
— If agreement on the loan cannot be reached, discussions will continue at the next summit on November 26-27. Most likely, unwilling countries will be allowed not to participate in the new loan," the source said.
At the same time, the approval of the loan does not require the support of all 27 EU member states, the main thing is that no one blocks it, head of the Ukraine-EU Parliamentary Cooperation Committee in the European Parliament (EP) Pekka Tovery told Izvestia. According to him, the EU will continue to provide military assistance to Ukraine in any case.
— Military assistance will continue during the negotiation process. Almost all member states understand that Russia is just stalling for time instead of conducting serious negotiations, so there is no willingness to [stop] military aid," the MEP said.
However, Moscow believes that it is Europe that has become an obstacle to a peaceful settlement. According to Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, the statements of the Europeans "do not indicate their desire to make any contribution to progress along the peaceful track." In particular, on November 9, the exercises of the "coalition of the willing" began in Poland to practice the deployment of troops to Ukraine in the event of a cease-fire. Moscow is categorically against the appearance of foreign troops in Ukraine.
Approval of a new aid package for Ukraine at the summit in Ireland is unlikely, it may take until the New Year, political analyst Ilya Shcherbakov told Izvestia. And according to Egor Sergeev, a senior researcher at the MGIMO Institute of International Studies, Brussels can use the "advanced cooperation" procedure, when a group of member states of the union has the right to act without involving all other states. At the same time, even the leading EU countries have reduced opportunities to help Ukraine: Italy may stop military supplies to Ukraine due to the need to provide for its own needs, the ANSA agency writes.
Can the EU enter into negotiations on Ukraine
European leaders will also discuss the outcome of the Abu Dhabi talks. There were representatives of the European Commission and the European Council, as well as a delegation of diplomatic advisers from Great Britain, Germany, Italy and France. But they only interacted with the United States and Ukraine. American representatives Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will visit Moscow on November 12, and then arrive in Dublin to meet with Vladimir Zelensky. They are also likely to bring the leaders of the EU countries up to date.
Russia has not communicated with representatives of European countries in Abu Dhabi, their status is unclear, said Vladimir Medinsky, assistant to the President of the Russian Federation and head of the Russian negotiating delegation. According to him, "representatives of Europe can become participants in the peaceful negotiation process on Ukraine as soon as their conscience wakes up." At the same time, Russia does not really understand what to talk about with Europe, there has not been a single peace proposal from them, Medinsky stressed.
Mikhail Galuzin, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Medinsky, Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation, and Igor Kostyukov, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.
The Europeans have not even been able to decide on the candidacy of a negotiator with Russia, discussions on this matter are continuing. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was named among the candidates, but she has already said that she would not like to represent Europe in negotiations with the Russian Federation. Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni had previously proposed discussing the EU's unified position on negotiations in Dublin. She noted that "so far, the EU's actions on this issue create the impression of complete confusion."
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gare Stere and Finnish President Alexander Stubb recently launched a communication channel with Russia. On October 27, they called the Russian president for the first time since 2022. Moreover, the Norwegian Prime Minister did not rule out the possibility of a new conversation and said that without a dialogue between the West and Russia, the conflict in Ukraine risks not ending. Bulgarian President Iliana Yotova has proposed launching negotiations with Russia on behalf of the entire European Union. According to Egor Sergeev, there is currently no real process in the EU to find a negotiator. Most likely, the association is only trying to clarify the positions of its members, Shcherbakov believes.
At the same time, the EU does not abandon sanctions against Russia. On November 11, the ambassadors of the EU countries agreed on another expansion of the "black lists", 43 people and 100 legal entities were added to them, the media reported. The EU does not intend to abandon the sanctions pressure on Russia, even despite the negotiations on the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict, said the head of European diplomacy Kaya Kallas.
In October, Politico wrote that the EU expects to present a new full-fledged package of sanctions before the end of the year. It is currently under preparation and has not been submitted for consideration by the EU ambassadors, another European source explained to Izvestia.
"We have not yet received [the draft of a new package of sanctions]," the source told Izvestia.
If Brussels fails to overcome the internal split and agree on a common diplomatic line, the key parameters of security in Europe will be fixed in the framework of trilateral agreements between Moscow, Washington and Kiev. At the same time, disagreements over a new loan for Ukraine may escalate into a protracted budget crisis within the union itself, forcing the leading EU economies to assume ever greater financial obligations, bypassing the disagreeing countries. In the end, the EU will face a tough choice: either quickly come to an agreement among themselves and act together, or stay away from solving the main crisis on its own continent.
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