Stronger support for Ukraine: Reflections on the EU’s toolbox and processes
The Ukraine Facility is the EU’s most ambitious external financial instrument ever, but it has some unresolved tensions. Amandine Sabourin, Karim Karaki and San Bilal examined the EU framework for Ukraine and argue that the numbers only tell half of the story. It is the social condition on which the facility's conditionality model ultimately depends.
Summary
The Ukraine Facility, in place since March 2024, represents the EU's most ambitious external financial instrument to date - combining macro-financial assistance, investment guarantees and technical assistance. This paper reflects on the facility, the EU's capacity to support a country at war, and what lessons must shape the next instrument under the 2028-2034 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). The design choices made now will determine whether EU support remains a credible strategic anchor and build the long-term strategic partnership that Ukraine and the EU's own geopolitical interests require.
It is clear that the facility has delivered at remarkable speed: six tranches disbursed by the end of 2025, €19.6 billion mobilised in 2024 alone, and a conditionality framework credible enough to trigger a partial disbursement when reform benchmarks were unmet. A €90 billion Ukraine Support Loan for 2026-27 has since extended the EU's commitment at scale.
Yet each of the facility's genuine innovations came with unresolved tensions. First, since speed was paramount, the governance of the facility lacked an integrated strategic oversight mechanism, with three separate ones operating in parallel: within the Commission, between the Commission and member states, and across an uneven EU27. Second, the three-pillar integration was designed but not fully operationalised, with limited synergies. Third, conditionality has worked well in the early stages, but faces mounting political and institutional strain as reforms become structurally harder and wartime capacity constraints tighten. Fourth, private sector engagement instruments and approaches, though laudable, need to be further tailored to contribute to the EU’s geostrategic interests. Fifth, local authorities and civil society remain outside the formal governance architecture. Last, the facility's front-loaded design created a financing cliff that the Support Loan has addressed in design but not yet in delivery.
