Most European Union leaders meeting for an EU summit in Brussels on October 27 backed granting more financial support to Ukraine as it fights a Russian invasion, but Hungary and Slovakia voiced reservations ahead of a decision the bloc needs to make unanimously in December.
The EU executive has proposed that the bloc's 27 countries chip in more funds in a revision to its shared budget to finance additional shared spending through 2027, including extending $52.8 billion in new aid to Kyiv.
Overall EU support for Ukraine has totaled almost 83 billion euros since Russia invaded in February 2022, the European Commission said this week.
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New Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico emphasized in a debate with other EU leaders that he wanted guarantees that EU money given to Ukraine would not be misappropriated, his office said on October 27.
"Ukraine is among the most corrupt countries in the world and we are conditioning what is excessive financial support on guarantees that European money (including Slovak) will not be embezzled," Fico said in a statement.
He said part of the money should go to renewing Slovakia's infrastructure along its eastern border with Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the European Commission is working on a proposal to pool some of the profits derived from frozen Russian state assets to help Ukraine and its postwar reconstruction, the EU executive's president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on October 27.
Von der Leyen told a news conference after an EU leaders summit that the value of frozen Russian sovereign assets was 211 billion euros ($223.15 billion) today and recalled that the bloc had decided that Russia must pay for Ukraine's reconstruction.
The European Union froze Russian sovereign assets in March 2022, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in the previous month.