‘Hurry up,’ I told them here in the corridors, ‘says Schreinemacher. ‘We’ve transferred money, it’s in your account, now you have to convert the contracts into shares and act. People are freezing, so to speak.’
Coordination needs to be better
The World Bank and the EBRD are important financial institutions when it comes to supporting Ukraine, both in terms of emergency aid and liquidity to Ukraine. Schreinemacher praises the organisations, but above all wants to improve the coordination of financial support to Ukraine.
“This is currently missing,” he wrote a few days ago in a letter to the House of Representatives. Schreinemacher sees positively that the G7 has indicated that the IMF will play a more central role, at least in terms of liquidity. “But I really don’t care who takes over the coordination, as long as action is taken.”
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A billion
More than one billion euros has been raised at an international donor conference to help Ukraine with its energy supply problems. “That’s half a billion euros in donations and half a billion euros in assets,” says Europe reporter Geert Jan Hahn. Some 70 countries and organizations have pledged money for, for example, the rehabilitation of facilities affected by Russian missiles.
The Paris conference was designed to help Ukrainians through the winter as Russia increasingly attacks gas and power plants and much of the country is routinely without electricity and heat. President Volodimir Zelensky said in a video message that he thought he needed 800 million euros for this. “That’s a lot of money,” he understood, but his international partners got his wish.
The conference served to raise funds, but also to coordinate aid. For example, the European Union is launching a new platform that will allow member states to better and more quickly coordinate the aid they send to Ukraine with each other.
Companies and investors
The EU itself has promised to send 40 large generators to Ukraine to power hospitals. Poland, France, Germany, Lithuania and Slovakia are providing small generators, transformers and emergency systems for when there is no electricity. A warehouse is being set up in Poland, from where deliveries can take place without any problems.
“Nobody knows exactly how much Ukraine needs, they don’t know themselves,” says Hahn. ‘You can actually divide support for the country into three parts. There will be a guarantee of eighteen billion euros for salaries and pensions for the whole of 2023. Today’s donor conference in Paris aims to help the country get through the winter. And later today, investors and large French companies will meet to see how they can invest in the country with a long-term view.