The European Commission (EC) has approved the disbursement of the second and final 500 million euro ($555 million) tranche of its macro-financial assistance to Ukraine.
The EC, the executive arm of the European Union, said on May 29 that the money will be paid out in the coming fortnight after Brussels noted its satisfaction with Ukrainian reforms in several sectors, including banking, energy, and health care.
The first tranche, also worth 500 million euros, was released in December 2018.
With the latest installment, the EU has provided Kyiv with 3.8 billion euros of macro-financial assistance loans since 2014, when Russia illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and started backing separatists in a war in the eastern part of the country that has killed more than 13,000 people.
This summer, the bloc is also expecting to disburse a separate loan worth 1.2 billion euros to Ukraine to help the country with the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.
Earlier on May 29, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said that he expects the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to approve a $5 billion loan package for the country next week.