EU governments gave the go-ahead to the first official payment of around €4.2 billion to Ukraine under a €50 billion package of loans and grants to support the country’s reconstruction.
They deemed Ukraine to have met nine conditions in a set of reforms covering “public finance management, governance of state-owned enterprises, business environment, energy and de-mining,” the Council of the EU said in a statement.
Kyiv has also made progress on “the fight against corruption and money laundering” and appointed a new head of its National Agency on Corruption Prevention, according to the official text of the decision .
The statement stressed the need “to allocate the money as soon as possible, given the difficult fiscal situation in Ukraine.”
The agreement between the EU and Ukraine, officially a candidate to become a member of the bloc, sees the country receive €50 billion in grants and loans from now until 2027 to help it get back on its feet after the crippling of its economy following Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
Ukraine has to carry out a series of reforms in return which, the EU estimates, could lead to a 6.2 percent increase in its Gross Domestic Product by 2027 and would cut its debt, which has spiraled since the start of the war, by 10 percent by 2033.