“Very strong pressure”: Washington is demanding that Europe reject the reparations loan for Ukraine – Politico

Officials in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump are putting very strong pressure on European governments to reject the so-called reparations loan for Ukraine.

Four EU officials reported this to Politico.

“When EU leaders met in Brussels in October, they failed to reach an agreement on the frozen funds because of Belgium’s opposition. Two months later, it became clear that the EU’s problem is in fact not Belgium, but Trump,” the outlet writes.

The newspaper reports that there has been an “American influence campaign in which representatives of the Trump administration worked the corridors in Brussels and held behind-the-scenes talks directly with national capitals.” As a result, Italy, Bulgaria, Malta, and the Czech Republic joined the group of dissenting countries.

Therefore, the chances of reaching an agreement on the reparations loan have decreased, a senior EU official said.

“I felt like crying,” he said, describing the atmosphere at yesterday’s meeting of EU affairs ministers in Brussels, who were preparing for the summit scheduled for Thursday.

Earlier, Politico had already written that the chances of granting Ukraine a reparations loan using frozen Russian assets in Europe are declining, but the European Commission is still not considering alternative options.