EU money, funding and ambiguity on the war in Ukraine, with the economic crisis continuing
“If my soldiers began to think, no one would remain in my ranks,” Frederick II, the great soldier-king of Prussia, once said. In fact, the function of thinking would fall to politics, to put an end to the war in Ukraine. With inflation not coming down, the cost of fuel skyrocketing and the middle class economy gasping, what rules are the profits of the large American multinationals. The strategies of the European Union seem to go in the same direction, which continues undaunted to disburse public funds to Ukraine, as if there were no tomorrow, without asking Kiev for a minimal strategy to get out of the conflict with Russia.
“Ukraine is courageously resisting unprovoked aggression,” writes the EU Commission on its website, in defiance of ridicule. The war, rightly or wrongly, began in 2014 in the Donbass, with the clash between the pro-Russian separatist forces and the Ukrainian government forces. The current invasion of Moscow, which has entered the conflict hand and foot, has been an unacceptable consequence.
The doubt arises that there is no better way for the EU to finance the war than by pouring cash for development and collaboration projects in Ukraine: “EU funding for projects of common interest in the digital, energy and transport sectors”. All for reconstruction and for peace, of course. But from the reports of the Washington Post, as we know from the investigations of the Pulitzer prize winner Seymour Hersh that many resources that have reached the Ukrainians often take “unexpected” paths. In addition to financing the war, many ended up directly in the pockets of the oligarchs, occasionally removed by Zelensky.
Corruption remains an ancestral problem for Kiev, to the point that in 2015 the Guardian defined Ukraine as the most corrupt nation in Europe. Yet no one in Brussels gets a clue as to where EU money goes.
The overall EU financial envelope for “improving European networks in the transport, energy and telecommunications sectors” “for the period 2021-2027 amounts to EUR 33.71 billion in current prices. This amount is broken down as follows: transport sector: €25.81 billion, of which €11.29 billion transferred from the Cohesion Fund to be spent in accordance with the provisions of this Regulation only in the Member States eligible for financing from the Cohesion Fund; digital sector: EUR 2.07 billion; energy sector: EUR 5.84 billion”.
All EU countries but also Ukraine can access the money. “The Commission”, writes the institution on its website, “is providing another 1.5 billion euros in the form of macro-financial assistance to Ukraine. With this sum, the Commission has so far disbursed €7.5 billion as part of a support package of up to €18 billion for 2023”. No details on how the money is spent.
It emerges, more than a year after the opening of the conflict, that we are facing an ideological war on which only the USA seem to have built a strategy, of expansion in Europe. But a month ago, as Seymour Hersh reported, the situation seems to have taken a turn. Countries such as Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Estonia, the Czech Republic and Latvia, bitter enemies of Putin, have started talks with the USA, despite the EU. They are worried about the scenario on which only the current Ukrainian government seems to aim: the end of the war never. US intelligence itself appears divided, between hawks and doves. And the doves are having a hard time getting the Democrats’ government to listen to them. But the campaign for the next US presidential elections is revving up its engines and the scenario could soon hasten unexpected changes, despite the EU inconsistency. Ukraine’s neighbors push Zelensky to pursue peace as millions of displaced people continue to pour into Europe
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