Ukraine expects to sign over €10 billion in deals at the Poland reconstruction conference, as the EU transfers the first loan tranche to Kyiv.
GDANSK: Ukraine expects to sign deals worth more than €10 billion euros over the next two days at a reconstruction conference in Poland, its prime minister said on Thursday, as the European Union transferred the first tranche of a big loan to Kyiv.
The announcement at the start of the Ukraine Recovery Conference in the Baltic port city of Gdansk struck a positive tone for an event that had looked likely to be overshadowed by a row between Warsaw and Kyiv over World War Two-era massacres.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Syvyrdenko said Kyiv expected to sign more than 160 agreements at the conference, taking place after more than four years of war following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She said the deals would cover areas including defence, business and regional development.
“The challenges facing our continent are existential… We’re forced to innovate to survive, and this has become our superpower,” she said. “So Ukraine empowers European defence. Ukraine empowers energy resilience.”
‘INVESTING IN EUROPE’S FUTURE’
Svyrydenko said the first €3.2-billion-euro ($3.63 billion)tranche of a €90-billion EU loan would be announced. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the cash was being transferred to Kyiv on Thursday, and Ukraine’s Finance Ministry later confirmed it had been received.
Ukraine has said it will use the loan for defence and security, energy resilience and covering its budget deficit.
Von der Leyen said a promised investment fund for the reconstruction of Ukraine, backed by the EU, France, Germany and Poland, was also “ready to go” and could mobilise around €500 million this year.
“The message is simple that we are sending to investors,” she said. “When you invest in Ukraine, you’re not only investing in Ukraine’s future, but you are investing in Europe’s future.”
The recovery forum is the main annual international event dedicated to Ukraine’s reconstruction following the devastation caused by Russian attacks, including on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
Rebuilding Ukraine’s economy will cost an estimated $588 billion over the next decade, the World Bank, United Nations, European Commission and the Ukrainian government said in February.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the choice of Gdansk as the conference venue was symbolic because it was rebuilt after being devastated in World War Two.
Tusk has been trying to calm tensions between Kyiv and Warsaw after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy named an army unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
Some Ukrainians regard the UPA as heroes for the resistance they mounted against the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and as symbols of Kyiv’s struggle for independence from Moscow.
But the UPA was also involved in the Volhynia massacres, a series of killings from 1943 to 1945 in which Poland says around 100,000 Poles were killed by Ukrainian nationalists. Thousands of Ukrainians also died in reprisal killings.
Polish President Karol Nawrocki, a political opponent of Tusk, stripped Zelenskiy of a top honour over the dispute.
“Ukraine rightly wants to be part of a United Europe,” Tusk said. “The condition for true, full unification has always been an understanding of one’s own history and a genuine capacity and willingness for reconciliation.”
