Brussels 19.12.2025 Belgium incumbent Prime minister Bart de Wever position against the “theft” of Russian foreitn assests prevailed, and the EU leaders have reached a deal to lend €90bn to Ukraine, borrowed against the bloc’s budget. Bart De Wever is proud that “the winner is Ukraine and financial stability”.
We came together today with one clear objective: find a credible and immediate solution to #Ukraine’s financing needs.
A victory for Ukraine, for Europe, for financial stability and for international law.
➖ 🇧🇪 Prime minister @Bart_DeWever after the European Council #EUCO pic.twitter.com/e0e70Etey4
— Belgium in the EU (@BelgiuminEU) December 19, 2025
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The EU leaders agreed to offer to Kyiv €90 billion after 16 hours of intense talks which concluded on next day morning, pointing to deep devides in the 27-strong bloc. Bart De Wever’ determination to stay within the legal framework reveals a stark contrast with the Ursula von der Leyen political voluntarism, and inclination to gambling games. The antithesis of two positions once again point to stark differences between elected leaders, and the EU bureacrats, appointed in untransparent, and uncharted procedures.
Furtunately for the Eurozone, and the citizens of the EU Ursula von der Leyen plan to expropriate frozen Russian assets to pay for the Ukraine loan is extinct. De Wever, the Flemish patriot whose career has been based on notion of souverenity of people achived a significant triumph over schemes of Ursula von der Leyen, representing the unaccountalbe EU bureacracy.
De Wever victory was remarkable, taking into consideration high presuser of a number of the European governments governments, believing in a breakthough during the Summit.
The financial agreement represents a possiblity for Ukraine to continue the warfare against Russian invasion, and occurs while Europe is willing to influence U.S.-led peace talks to end the conflict.
“We committed, we delivered,” European Council president António Costa said after the summit of EU leaders agreed the loan.
Ursula on der Leyen as the European Commission president have struggled for month over using €210bn of assets belonging to Russian state, most of which is held in Belgium, to back a so-called “reparations loan” for Ukraine. Her crusade was conducted against the official advice of the financial intitutions, who intitially pointed to the weakness of ‘moral grounds’ argument, and unpredictible consequences for the Eurozone.
Repeatdly Belgium Prime minister had demanded the EU members legal guarantees to cover any financial risks from the Ukraine loan, the reasonable demand, which wasn’t met with enthusiasm by the very those leaders who campainged for the illegal use of Russian sovereign assets. De Wever demanded risk sharing from the EU countries against litigation and retaliation risks from Kremlin, according to an earlier stages proposal discussed by the leaders, who were reluctant to face the risks of Ursula von der Leyen illegal practice proposal.
Zelensky has warned that Ukraine faces collapse in April 2026 without additional support. Ursula von der Leyen had pledged not to leave the Summit in Brussels without agreeing some form of financial aid.
After more than 16 hours of discussions among EU leaders, they agreed in the early hours of Friday, December 19 to raise a loan of €90bn on capital markets, secured against the bloc’s shared budget, to fund Ukraine for the next two years.
Moreover Ukraine will have to return the loan after Russia has paid reparations. Russia’s assets would remain immobilised and could be used in the future to repay the loan if Kremlin refuses to pay reparations, the EU Council President Costa said.
The agreement to borrow against EU taxpayer funds rather than Russia’s cash is a heavy political blow to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who had insitsted the reparations loans and applied pressure to Belgium’s Prime Minister to dismiss his arguments.
“Europe has won and financial stability has certainly won,” said De Wever. “We avoided chaos, we avoided division.”
However Merz described the outcome as “a very practical, good solution that in its impact is just like the solution that we had long discussed, but was clearly just too complicated”.
He has underlined that Ukraine would “only have to repay this loan if it is compensated by Russia”, which means the burden will be carried on the shoulders of the European taxpayers.
I am grateful to all leaders of the European Union for the European Council’s decision on €90 billion in financial support for Ukraine in 2026–2027. This is significant support that truly strengthens our resilience. It is important that Russian assets remain immobilized and that…
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) December 19, 2025
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