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REUTERS/Lisi Niesner A German national flag flutters in front of Reichstag building in Berlin, Germany, May 21, 2024.
AFP-Jiji
13:38 JST, August 18, 2024
Germany, the second largest contributor of aid to Ukraine, plans to halve its military aid to Kyiv in 2025, a parliamentary source told AFP Saturday.
Instead, the government of Olaf Scholz will bank on money generated from frozen Russian assets to continue supporting Kyiv, and is not planning “additional aid” to the €4 billion ($4.4 billion) set aside in next year’s budget.
This year, aid from Berlin amounted to €8 billion.
To compensate, Germany is counting on “the creation, within the framework of the G7 and the European Union, of a financial instrument using frozen Russian assets, said a separate source from inside the ministry of finance.
German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung said in its weekend edition that the move was part of an agreement between the chancellor, the Social Democratic party (SPD) and Finance Minister Christian Lindner.
Lindner is a member of junior coalition partner the Liberal party.
Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany Oleksii Makeiev said in a posting on X, formerly Twitter, that “the security of Europe depends on Germany’s political will to continue to play a frontline role in supporting Ukraine”.
The 2025 budget has been the subject of fierce discussions between the government coalition of Liberals, the Greens and the Social Democrats.
Lindner has asked other ministries to make savings in order to respect a constitutional rule that aims to prevent the state from taking on too much debt.
However the budget is still subject to discussions before being adopted by the end of the year. The finance ministry said Saturday it was open to considering extra spending for Ukraine on a case-by-case basis.
Ukraine’s allies have been working for several months on a mechanism to allow part of the $300 billion of Russian assets frozen worldwide to be used to support Kyiv in its war with Moscow.
