MOSCOW, December 15 (Sputnik) — Both the European Union and the United States are reluctant to give Ukraine money while Europe's economy is struggling itself, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Monday.
"No one really is very willing to give Ukraine money even for immediate needs. Europe's economy itself is struggling to overcome the crisis," Medvedev said in his opinion piece in the Monday issue of Russia's Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper.
According to him, the EU could hypothetically extend an emergency loan covering Ukraine's debt that is under threat of default. However, it is unlikely to help Kiev as it did Greece, Spain and Ireland after the 2008 crisis. Even then, Medvedev stressed, not all "European brothers" were ready to part with their taxpayers' money to aid other countries, despite them being EU member-states.
In this case, at issue is a country that the EU "is not in any rush to accept," the Prime Minister said.
A number of Western countries began providing active assistance to Ukraine following a February coup in Kiev. Since May, the European Union allocated 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) in two installments as part of its Macro-Financial Assistance program. The final tranche of 250 million euros ($311 million) is expected to be disbursed by spring 2015 provided that Kiev shows progress with its structural reforms.
