ByMike O'Sullivan,
Senior Contributor.
The EU leaders summit takes place this Thursday against the backdrop of President Trump’s latest change of mind on Ukraine, and the announcement of a summit with Vladimir Putin in Hungary, which has now been shelved. The reaction of EU leaders to the prospective summit, and to proposals by President Trump that Ukraine should surrender the Donbas region, was met with anger and a little surprise.
At the EU summit in Copenhagen, a number of Ukraine specific items will be in focus – deeper collaboration with Ukraine in terms of the provision of advice, military training and equipment manufacture (Ukrainian drones will be produced in the UK) for Ukraine, the imposition of further sanctions on Russia (which Orban has blocked, as well as Slovakia) and the commandeering of Russian financial assets to help support Ukraine.
On the latter item, it is believed that the EC is now very close to setting in motion the legal process to take control of the frozen Russian funds to the tune of Eur 170bn, to be made available to Ukraine as a ‘reparation loan’ One demand (from France) is that Ukraine spends some of the money on European defence equipment.
