With most of its domestic revenues going towards the war effort, Kyiv heavily relies on foreign funding to cover essential social expenditure, such as salaries for public servants, and medical and educational workers.
Ukraine lobbied the EU to increase funding for 2024 from an initial €8 billion to €16 billion in order to close the deficit, said a Ukrainian official who was granted anonymity to speak freely. But the downside is that the amounts the EU will give to Ukraine until 2027 are set to decrease annually.
The EU has earmarked around €5.3 billion for 2026 and €2.1 billion for the war-torn country in 2027, according to its own figures. But this is seen as small fry relative to Ukraine’s economy, which was worth a total of $167 billion in 2023.
Hungary repeatedly criticized this allocation during monthly gatherings of EU finance ministers, said two EU diplomats.
During negotiations earlier this year, Budapest’s Russia-friendly government lobbied hard to include a midterm review of EU funding in 2026.
But the first EU diplomat noted that this might become a pointless exercise as by then, most of the cash will have already been handed to Ukraine.
