Media: EU assistance plan for Ukraine lacks sponsors
On Monday the Lithuanian parliament was presented with an assistance plan for Ukraine. This will involve 50 billion euros which Kyiv is supposed to receive over the next 10 years as support for small and medium enterprise (SME).
As Rzeczpospolita reports, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius commented that the so-called “Marshall Plan for Ukraine” needs to involve the EBRD and IMF in addition to EU states. There should also be a corresponding agency in Kyiv to oversee the financing of EU projects. Vilnius is convinced that this would improve investors’ confidence in Ukraine.
Linkevičius admitted that the Lithuanian proposal currently has no sponsors. Vilnius hopes to attract the interest of EU states during the Eastern Partnership summit which will take place on November 24. The idea’s authors suggest that Kyiv could receive 5 billion euros as early as 2018.
However, Brussels still remains quiet, as do Berlin and Paris, without whose help it would be hard to imagine implementing such a plan. The Polish Foreign Ministry is also keeping quiet, although Poland was a co-author of the Eastern Partnership project.
“Lithuania is the Central European leader which deals with the problems of the Eastern Partnership, and in so doing it takes over this role from Poland, which is deliberately not dealing with this,” former Polish Foreign Minister Paweł Kowal told Rzeczpospolita.
“Lithuania’s plans do not have great chances. The summit’s program was drawn up earlier, and it is unlikely that something unplanned will emerge at the last minute. On the other hand, thanks to the fact that Lithuania set the bar so high, the support program for Ukraine may be richer,” he added.
The news outlet also mentioned that the IMF has initiated a financial support program for Ukraine. However, Kyiv constantly has problems complying with the fund’s conditions for receiving tranches.
At the same time, IMF First Deputy Managing Director David Lipton said that he knows nothing about the “Marshall Plan” for Ukraine. “I have never heard anything about this idea, and if such preparation was truly being made, I would know about it,” he said.