MEPs approve €35bn loan for Ukraine with some far-right support
Published on 22/10/2024 - 13:49 GMT+2
The proposed loan for Ukraine split the far-right Patriots for Europe (PfE) group, with some of its members voting in favour and others against.
The European Parliament on Tuesday overwhelmingly backed a ground-breaking initiative to issue a loan of up to €35 billion for Ukraine using the immobilised assets of Russia's Central Bank as collateral for the repayments.
The plan received 518 votes in favour, 56 against and 61 abstentions in Strasbourg. Lawmakers agreed not to table any amendments to speed up the final approval in the Council, where it already got the preliminary green light.
"This is another historic moment," said European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, who welcomed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the hemicycle last week.
"With this vote, we're sending a very strong message that we're using profits from Russian frozen assets for Ukraine, and Russia, as an aggressor, must and will pay for its destruction," she added, as an unidentified man heckled from afar.
Notably, the proposed loan gathered the support of several far-right lawmakers, who tend to oppose providing military and financial assistance to Ukraine. (The €35 billion will be undesignated, meaning Kyiv will spend it as it sees fit, including on weapons.)
Over 20 MEPs of the far-right Patriots for Europe (PfE) voted in favour of the credit, while almost 40, including its president, Jordan Bardella, chose to abstain. Bardella was among the group leaders who met with Zelenskyy last week.
Only seven of the PfE's 86 MEPs voted against the legal text.
The numbers represent a modest contrast compared to the resolution in support of Ukraine that the Patriots largely voted down in July.
However, the Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) group, the most radical, disruptive force to the right, reaffirmed their hostility and moved in unison against the loan.
The vast majority of the hard-right European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, which is dominated by Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy and Poland's Law and Justice, endorsed the initiative, as they have done with other Ukraine-related files in the past.
No lawmakers from the the centrist factions, the European People's Party (EPP), the Socialists & Democrats (S&D) and Renew Europe, voted against Tuesday's text.