Sweden presents new national aid package for Ukraine ahead of EU summit

Sweden presented a new aid package of some €144 million for Ukraine on Monday, just a few days ahead of this week’s EU summit where Swedish Prime Minister Ukraine warned of a need to find common ground amid Hungary’s continued reticence on aid.

Kristersson and Development Minister Johan Forssell presented a new package at a press conference on Monday.

“This is the largest single grant so far in Sweden’s bilateral aid to Ukraine,” said Kristersson.

Of the  SEK 1.4 billion (€144 million), the bulk – SEK 900 million (€79 million) – will go to the World Bank’s Ukraine Reconstruction Fund, which supports Ukraine’s key infrastructure in energy, housing, health and transport.

The money from Sweden’s aid budget will be used to purchase equipment for heating and transmission capacity in the Ukrainian electricity grid. It also includes other measures to help Ukrainians cope with the winter, such as shelters.

Forssell, for his part, said that this is what Ukraine is asking for to effectively counter Russia’s so-called “energy terrorism”.

“Russia is deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure to make an already hard-pressed civilian population even more vulnerable. With this package, we want to help Ukraine rebuild and repair what has been destroyed,” Forssell said.

Kristersson also warned of the consequences if EU countries fail to agree to an extended long-term budget at this week’s upcoming summit in Brussels.

“I still hope it will be resolved. But I want to stress that we are not talking about the usual European disagreements that we sometimes have because then you just have another meeting later, but this will have enormous consequences if we do not agree”, he told the press conference in what many believe to be a reference to Viktor Orban’s Hungary.

Two votes are on the agenda for this week’s summit.

The first is on financial support for Kyiv to the tune of €50 billion, and the second is opening negotiations for its accession to the Union.

Hungary has cited concerns about Ukraine’s treatment of its ethnic Hungarian minority, as well as the country’s overall democratic standards, as reasons for its opposition to Ukraine’s EU membership bid.

However, some observers believe that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is using the issue as a bargaining chip to secure concessions from the EU on other issues.

(Charles Szumski | Euractiv.com)

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