Macron's interruption of Trump: is he right? How much of EU aid to Ukraine is a loan?

BarcelonaThe relationship between French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Donald Trump has alternated between open rivalry and allegedjoke"which many mitjans attribute to him. Since the tycoon is going to arrive at the White House for the first time, the six trobades have generated curious images that the analysts have looked at with a magnifying glass to try to determine who of the two moments is wrong. The visit of these dilluns of the gal leader to Washington will not be an exception and – in addition to various interesting examples of non-verbal communication – will leave a new controversial moment captured by the television cameras. Macron will interrupt Donald Trump to deny it live and will correct the several statements about the aid that Europe provides to Ukraine According to Trump, the European Union has only offered "loans" to Kiev and has always recovered the money it has given. posat, but Macron assures that this is not true and that "Europe has provided real money" to its Ukrainian ally.

What do the data say? According to European Commission sources consulted by ARA, of the 135 billion euros that the European Union has already donated to Ukraine, 65% has been in the form of "grants and non-returnable contributions". So Macron is right when he says that most of the money that Europeans have given to Ukraine has been non-repayable, although 35% has been in the form of loans.

"Europe is lending money to Ukraine. They get their money back..." Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, before his meeting with Macron. It is then that the French president interrupts Trump by placing his hand gently on his arm and intervenes to say: "No, in fact, to be honest, we have paid 60% of the total effort. It has been, like the United States, through loans, guarantees and subsidies, and we have put real money, which is clear. We have 20 as a guarantee for a loan, because they are not ours. So they are frozen. If in the end, in the negotiation that we will have with Russia, they are willing to give them, great.

A full-blown denial to which Donald Trump makes some gestures with his hands and face that denote skepticism and ends by saying: "If it is what you think, it is fine with me." The exchange has gone viral due to Macron's audacity to deny live the most powerful man in the world, who is also known to have a propensity for lying. And the data confirms that this time what he said was also a fallacy, since the 65% of European aid to Ukraine will not be recovered.

According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which conducts a Close monitoring of the money Ukraine has received In terms of financial, military and humanitarian aid, Europe has so far provided more money than the United States for this cause since the start of the war on February 24, 2022. According to this count, Europe has already provided 132.3 billion euros to Ukraine, compared to 114.2 billion euros (at current exchange rates) from the United States. In addition, the EU has pledged to provide another 115.1 billion in the future. Donald Trump has repeatedly said that the United States has given 350 billion to Ukraine, a figure that has been repeatedly contradicted by official data that coincide with the Kiel Institute figure. The data corroborate Macron's claim that the EU has provided 60% of the aid that the West has so far given to Ukraine.

The figures for European aid in Ukraine

The most up-to-date official data from the European Union The G7 put the aid to Ukraine at €135 billion (in line with the Kiel Institute's count), of which €67.7 billion is financial and humanitarian aid, around €48.7 billion is military aid, €17 billion is aid for the reception of Ukrainian refugees within the European Union, and finally €1.5 billion disbursed from Russian financial assets frozen by the EU, which Macron mentioned. A G7 agreement provides for offering Kiev $50 billion to be made from the profits derived from the Russian assets that the EU has frozen, by virtue of its sanctions against Moscow. The agreement provides for using the profits that these Russian assets frozen by European banks may generate, but not the assets themselves (which are the ones Macron mentioned in his conversation with Trump).

Of these 135 billion in European aid already disbursed, 19.6 billion come from the so-called Ukraine Facility, a mechanism created to contribute to the reconstruction of Ukraine and which plans to do so through loans and grants, and another 2.8 billion. But there is still another 28 billion in the form of macro-financial assistance that could include a part of money in the form of loans.

In any case, what everyone is clear about in Brussels is that the money being provided to Ukraine is a non-refundable sum, as has been reiterated by various community sources, and that there is no will (and even less real possibility, given the poor state of the Ukrainian economy) to recover that money.