WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Canada and Britain have expressed interest in working on the EU idea of a reparations loan for Ukraine based on immobilised Russian assets, European Economic Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said on Thursday.
Speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington, Dombrovskis said he presented the idea of the EU loan, which could be up to 185 billion euros over two years, to G7 finance ministers.
“I presented the work we currently do on the reparation loan, but I also emphasize the need for other partners to play their part to provide support for Ukraine and to contribute to the financial assurances needed for the IMF program,” he said.
“I will be having later today also a bilateral meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and probably will be able to zoom in more on what exactly the U.S. plans are in this regard,” Dombrovskis said.
“We think that this (reparations loan) model is scalable and other G7 members, which also hold Russian assets in their territory, can also use a similar approach, of course, in line with their legal systems and so on.
“And actually the UK and Canada have indicated interest to actually work on a similar model as our reparations loan,” he said.
(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
