(Yesterday at 11:30 am)Ivan Denisovich Wrote: After 15 hours of talks in Brussels, the EU summit broke up with a deal on a €90 billion loan to Ukraine.
The cash will be raised through joint borrowing between 24 of the EU’s 27 countries, but it needed all of them to agree to the plan because it’s guaranteed by the central EU long-term budget.
It's worse option than original plan of using frozen russian assets I think but that still is a positive outcome.
I'm curious as to how you predict this playing out. In the long run, it seems as though a positive outcome is far from guaranteed.
History indicates that a large portion of the 90 billion will be skimmed off by corruption. But let's assume that this time a significant portion of the money will go to the war effort. How much time does this buy?
War is expensive, so what is the predicted timeline? Does this money keep Ukraine fighting until the end of 2026? During that time, will there be a possibility of reversing the losses that have happened so far? Surely they're not fantasizing about pushing the Russians back to the pre-war borders.
Then there's also a question of whether this is enough. Trump is now expecting the European countries to pay for Ukraine's military equipment. Does this money come on top of the 90 billion? Zelensky said in a speech recently that some of the weapons systems he was given are now useless due to a lack of ammunition, and he wants more. So that's expensive too.
And of course there's the issue of whether Europe can really afford this. (Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic declined to participate in the plan, so their economies are less vulnerable.) Remember that the US has told European countries that they're no longer allowed to buy cheap energy from Russia, and this is having a significant effect on their economies. Industry is hurting, and the cost of living for citizens is going up. As living standards decline, and voters see their tax money being sent to a war that can't be won, the current leaders become less popular and there's an increased threat of right-wing parties gaining popularity.
Remember that US sanctions on Russia are designed in part to benefit US oil suppliers. Europe has to buy more expensive oil from America. But America has exempted itself from this -- it does not sanction Russian exports of uranium to the US. Every year America buys millions and millions of dollars worth of uranium from Russia -- about 20 to 25% of what it needs to keep its reactors running. This money of course benefits the Russian government. So it looks pretty hypocritical that America gets its energy supplies from Russia while saying that Europe can't do the same.
So seriously, realistically -- what benefit do we get from funding another year of war, paid for by European taxpayers in a "loan" which will certainly never be repaid?
