Donald Trump\u2019s phone call with Vladimir Putin earlier this week \u2013 during which the US president promised his Russian counterpart \u201cmassive amounts of jobs and wealth\u201d once the war in Ukraine ends \u2013 prompted a predictably mealy-mouthed response from European leaders.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to thank President Trump for his tireless efforts to bring a ceasefire to Ukraine,\u201d Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X. \u201cIt\u2019s important that the US stays engaged. We will continue to support Volodymyr Zelenskyy to achieve lasting peace in Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is something profoundly pathetic \u2013 deeply disturbing \u2013 about the EU\u2019s top official thanking a US leader for directly undermining the bloc\u2019s plan to end the most brutal war on European soil in nearly a century. (Just days earlier, von der Leyen had vowed to \u201ckeep the pressure high\u201d on Moscow until it agrees to a ceasefire.)<\/p>\n
Von der Leyen\u2019s comments, however, were also revealing in what they didn\u2019t say.<\/p>\n
In particular, her refusal to condemn Trump\u2019s claim that Kyiv could be a \u201cgreat beneficiary\u201d of US trade only compounds fears that, once the war ends, the EU will stand aside while the Trump administration plunders the country in broad daylight.<\/p>\n
One major \u2013 and relatively under-reported \u2013 illustration of this is Ukraine\u2019s ongoing negotiations with holders of its so-called \u201cGDP warrants,\u201d or bonds that offer payouts linked to economic growth.<\/p>\n
The owners of these bonds, which include major US hedge funds Aurelius Capital Management and VR Capital Group and are indexed to Kyiv\u2019s economic performance in 2023, are currently demanding that Kyiv pay out $600 million by the end of this month, on account of the fact that Ukraine\u2019s economy grew by more than 3% two years ago.<\/p>\n
Kyiv, understandably, argues that it shouldn\u2019t pay the full amount since its \u201cstellar\u201d growth that year was due to its economy having contracted by almost 30% following Moscow\u2019s invasion in 2022.<\/p>\n
Ukraine\u2019s argument is also staunchly supported by debt justice campaigners and independent analysts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese warrants were created in 2015 under completely different macroeconomic conditions, which differ fundamentally from today\u2019s realities,\u201d said Bohdan Slutskyi, an economist at the Centre for Economic Strategy, a Kyiv-based think tank.<\/p>\n
Source: Euractiv.<\/a><\/p>\n