I’m not sure it will help if we disclose taxpayers that the loan won’t be paid back. The idea was to sweep it under the rug, not boast about the EU’s lost money.
Loans are the way to do it because of the way most European budgets work. But you can’t call them regular loans in good faith, and no politician in Europe does so. The language towards the public is that Europe is giving money.
Ukranians are dying. We're donating cash and materiel. We're getting the better end of the deal there, and then some.
Of course they are, what did you expect would happen in war? Fighting with pillows? However it's not my responsibility to bear financially. My responsibility is caring for my own.
>We're donating cash
People are dying here as well as politicians are saying the healthcare is underfunded so clearly we need the cash back home.
The Ukrainian GDP is 179 billion USD (https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/gdp?continent=euro...); they're a market smaller than Greece (244 billion USD) or Hungary (212 billion USD). If they succeed in driving the Russians out, they'll have to rebuild their country and will probably be in debt for decades.
Democracy in Russia is a pipe dream; they have nuclear weapons and Putin isn't about to give up power. I guess it's possible that his successor could hold elections, but that's highly unlikely at best.