LONDON — Ukraine needs foreign help to balance its budget in 2024, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko said on Thursday, calling on partners including the U.S. to “step in.”
The war-torn country is confident it will balance the books this year, thanks in large part to support from the EU, the U.S., the International Monetary Fund and other donors.
But it needs more external funding. “For next year, we also expect other nations to step in and cover our expenses and help us to cover our budget deficit,” Marchenko told POLITICO in an interview Thursday, on the sidelines of a Ukraine Recovery Conference hosted in London.
Partners are already coming forward. The IMF reached an agreement with Kyiv in March on a $15.6 billion program aimed at ensuring macroeconomic stability. On Tuesday, the European Commission proposed a €50 billion aid package for Ukraine through 2027. This, the EU maintains, would cover 45 percent of Ukraine’s budgetary and urgent reconstruction needs, estimated at $110 billion.
But while this is a “very, very good signal,” it won’t close the gap, Marchenko said. “That’s why we should attract the attention of our [other] key partners, for example from the United States. They also should step in and at least provide us midterm relief from their side,” he added.
Even if the counteroffensive currently underway enables Ukraine to make military gains or even obtain victory, the peace won’t be cheap. “It will be a huge deficit, because even if we’re expecting to decrease the amount of money spent [on the] military campaign, the next day … the social and humanitarian needs will be tremendous.”
Marchenko also pushed back on the idea, floated by EU officials, that budgetary support should be quickly phased out over the next two or three years, and replaced with loans and guarantees for private investments.
“Maybe we’ll have some investment boom in Ukraine, tax revenue will increase twice and we will be able to fulfil our basic needs by ourselves. But to be honest with you, it looks like magic. And I am not a magician.”
Source : POLITICO
