Czech Prime Minister says it is impossible to continue financing Ukraine
The Czech Republic can no longer allocate funds from the state budget to Ukraine due to a lack of money for the country's internal needs. This was announced on January 2 by Czech Prime Minister Andrei Babis.
"We can no longer give Ukraine money from the Czech budget, because we don't even have enough for school cookbooks or nurses for the sick. The guarantee is actually a debt, because it is clear that Ukraine will never be able to repay this money," he said in an interview with the Dehík portal.
He noted that Ukraine has already received €187 billion in aid, and in the future it may receive about €190 billion — €100 billion from the new multi-year financial plan of the European Union (EU) and €90 billion in loans. In total, according to his calculations, the volume of support will reach €377 billion.
Babis also recalled that the Czech Republic annually transfers from 60 to 62 billion crowns (about $2.9–3 billion) to the EU budget, and thus is already involved in financing assistance to Ukraine through pan-European mechanisms.
Answering questions about the future of the so-called "Czech initiative on ammunition for the Armed Forces of Ukraine (Armed Forces of Ukraine. — Ed.)", as well as about the contract for the purchase of 24 F-35 Lightning II fighters in the United States, the prime minister said that he had not yet studied the relevant documentation in detail.
The Speaker of the Czech Parliament, Tomio Okamura, said on January 1 that money from the budget intended for the needs of socially vulnerable groups of the population should not be spent on the purchase of weapons for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to him, helping and distributing money to foreigners beyond the norm is absurd. In addition, Okamura expressed his conviction that Ukraine should not be in the European Union (EU).
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