Just before 3 a.m. on Friday, the news began to percolate through the European Union’s cavernous headquarters in central Brussels. After more than 16 hours of negotiations, leaders from across the 27-nation bloc had come up with a plan to finance a desperate Ukraine through 2027.
It wasn’t the plan that officials had been talking up for weeks. That one would have used Russian assets frozen in Europe to back a loan to Ukraine, and leaders had repeatedly said it was their best option — a decisive course of action and a show of strength.
Instead, it was a messy compromise.
“Europe always works on the basis of muddling through,” said Mujtaba Rahman, the managing director for Europe at the Eurasia Group. “A much more decisive signal could have been sent, and they failed to do that.”
European leaders celebrated the final result, which will funnel 90 billion euros’ worth of loans to Ukraine (about $105 billion) over the next two years. That extends a crucial lifeline for the country, which had been expected to start running out of money early next year. Ukraine will need to pay back the loans, which will carry no interest, only if Russia pays reparations.
“I don’t like to be here at four o’clock in the morning,” said António Costa, the president of the European Council, at a news conference in the small hours of Friday morning. “But I like that we deliver.”
