Varadkar insists nations can still fund Ukraine if plan is vetoed at EU level

Ireland would be prepared to join other European countries in providing financial support to Ukraine on an inter-governmental basis if the package is blocked at EU level, the Taoiseach has indicated.

A proposed 50 billion euro EU support package for Kyiv was vetoed by Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban at the last European Council meeting in December.

Mr Varadkar said one option open to European nations would be to circumvent the EU structures and join together to provide funding that was not formally approved by the bloc as a whole.

“That’s an option,” he told RTE.

“I hope we don’t have to use that option.

“I’d prefer to just do it within the context of the European Union budget.

“We made a really important decision just before Christmas to begin negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova on those countries joining the European Union.

“I would like to see us agree at the (council) meeting in February to give Ukraine a financial package, and that’s really important for Ukraine because Ukraine cannot win this war on its own.

“It’ll be crushed by the greater wealth and power and size of Russia.

“And that’s why it needs its allies in Europe, and it needs its US allies in the US.

“And what we want to do is not just provide Ukraine with a certain amount of money for a few months or for a year.

“We want to put in place a financial package of 50 billion euro in loans and grants which says to the Kremlin, which says to Russia, that we’re going to stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes.

“And that’s what we want to achieve.

“If we can’t do that as a European Union, well then probably it will be the case, or may well be the case, that Ireland is one of 25 or 26 countries that does that on an inter-governmental basis.

“But I think it’d be much better if we do it as the European Union.”