Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought largescale war back to Europe, and with it eventually the need for a reconstruction effort unseen here since the Marshall Plan. While some financial support can be expected from the international community most of the reconstruction burden is expected to fall on the EU.
A successful reconstruction of Ukraine will however be expensive. Perhaps currently frozen Russian sovereign assets will be part of a peace settlement, or other avenues of war reparations will be pursued. Yet, in any realistic scenario, the EU will over the coming years have to devote hundreds of billions of euros to this effort. The question is whether, or how, the EU will decide to carry out this task?
Multilateral development bank balance sheets cannot finance large-scale reconstruction of infrastructure normally paid for by government tax revenues, but financial costs of this magnitude are well beyond the recently agreed 2021-27 Multiannual Financial Frameworks (MMF) or bilateral member state assistance to Ukraine. Both the European Commission and the EU Council agrees that new sources of financing must be identified.
The Covid19 pandemic saw the EU take the unprecedented step of issuing common debt to help conditionally finance our economic recovery. Were the EU to take a similar step to help Ukraine, it would through the precedent setting effect of such repeated crisis-driven common debt issuance usher in a new degree of EU fiscal integration.
This conference hosted by Think Tank Europa and the German Marshall Fund will explore the different challenges and opportunities facing the EU decisionmakers as they contemplate how to adequately finance Ukraine’s reconstruction and EU accession process.
Programme:
Moderator: Director Lykke Friis, Think Tank Europa
15.00-15.05 Welcome by Chairman Laura Klitgaard, The Danish Society of Engineers, IDA
15.05-15.25 Danish Reconstruction in Ukraine – Danish ambassador to Ukraine, Ole Egberg Mikkelsen (Online) TBC
15.25-15.45 Keynote intervention by Vincas Jurgutis, Vice-Minister of the Economy and Innovation of the Republic of Lithuania
15.45-16.10 Break
16.10-17.00 Panel discussion: Should common debt finance the rebuilding of Ukraine?
includes Jacob Funk Kirkegaard/GMF, prof. Niels Thygesen/EFB and Anders Overvad/TTE
17.00-17.20 Discussion: How can Europe finance the rebuilding of Ukraine?
TBC Kim Jørgensen, Director General, European Investment Bank
17.20 – 17.25 Closing remarks
