EU might allocate 7 mln euros for Ukraine Facility in advance - Ukrainian deputy economy minister

MOSCOW. Nov 30 (Interfax) - After a 50-million-euro Ukraine Facility program for Ukraine for 2024-2027 is likely to be endorsed in mid-December or in January, to be followed by a prompt endorsement of a Ukraine Plan with terms and conditions that need to be met for the funding to be provided, the European Union is expected to immediately allocate about 7 billion euros for supporting Ukraine's macro-financial stability, Ukrainian Deputy Economy Minister Alexei Sobolev said.

"There's going to be the front-loading of both reforms and money, as well as an advance payment for macro-financial stability, something amounting to around 7 billion euros," Ukrainian media quoted Sobolev as saying on Wednesday.

The Ukrainian government sees no risk that Ukraine Facility might be not approved, he said.

"There are just some technical nuances as to when [it will be approved], but we know that Europe is prepared and united, it supports us, and this will happen for sure," he said.

After Ukraine Facility is approved, the government will present a Ukraine Plan, after which it should take the European Commission several weeks to work on it, Sobolev said.

To minimize this time, the government is coordinating a draft of this plan with its European partners as much as possible, he said.

"They say it's an excellent plan and endorse a payment timeline and a quarterly list of indicators that must be met. And give us this first advance payment to the budget. After that, we give a special account every quarter, they examine this for four to six weeks, and add more money to the budget depending on how well the reforms are carried out," Sobolev said in describing the financing procedure.

Finance Ministry officials assumed earlier that an advance payment under Ukraine Facility could amount to about 4.5 billion euros in early 2024.

The Finance Ministry expects 18 billion euros of the required $41 billion to be allocated under this program in 2024 to finance the state budget deficit.