{"id":43080,"date":"2026-05-21T15:48:32","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T12:48:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/?p=43080"},"modified":"2026-05-25T09:47:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T06:47:26","slug":"may-economic-review-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/may-economic-review-in-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"May Economic Review in 2026. How can Ukraine effectively use \u20ac60 billion in EU defense aid?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"How can Ukraine effectively use \u20ac60 billion in EU defense aid?\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oJfPB3sU71c?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Since March 2022, the Centre for Economic Strategy (CES) has been preparing monthly reviews of Ukraine\u2019s economy during a full-scale war.\u00a0 The special topic of the May review is: <\/span><b>\u00abHow can Ukraine effectively use \u20ac60 billion in EU defense aid?\u00bb.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All previous reviews can be found under the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/category\/research-list-en\/economy-during-the-war-en\/\"><b>link<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Key changes in the Ukrainian economy in May:<\/p>\n<p><b>Sectoral analysis: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Real GDP fell by 0,5% in Q1 2026 amid the energy crisis during the heating season. The energy situation remained stable in April \u2013 May, supporting business and consumer confidence, but the 2026 forecast worsened in response to the war in Iran. Metallurgy production fell in April due to EU regulations. However, current harvest expectations remained good amid higher humidity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Monetary sector: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Inflation in April 2026 reached 8,6% y-o-y, up from 7,9% in March, and rose by 1,4% m-o-m. The NBU revised its forecast, expecting a 1,9 pp higher inflation by the end of 2026 than had been anticipated by the previous report in January. The change comes in anticipation of higher production costs, associated with the effects of increasing fuel prices. Further currency restrictions were relaxed, aiming to support businesses and the Armed Forces.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Fiscal sector: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Middle East crisis still impacts the budget \u0430nd it reflects on revenues \u2013 they are growing. However, domestic revenues are insufficient to cover all budgetary needs, so international support remains crucial. War expenditures increased significantly in March compared to winter. Despite this, in Q1, war-related spending was relatively lower than last year. This indicates lack of resources. Therefore, amendments to the Law od State budget will be made, funded by the Ukraine Support Loan.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Special topic: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u20ac60 bn defence support is a part of \u20ac90 bn Ukraine Support Loan. The loan is split between direct budget support and defence industrial funding across two years. Goal of the \u20ac60 bn support: give Ukraine a qualitative military edge. The \u20ac60 bn can fund two broad categories of defence products. Ukraine nominally decides what to buy, Nothing moves without the European Commission approval and member state cooperation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">See our report below for further details.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This event has been funded by the UK International Development from the UK government; however, the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK government\u2019s official policies.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since March 2022, the Centre for Economic Strategy (CES) has been preparing monthly reviews of Ukraine\u2019s economy during a full-scale war.\u00a0 The special topic of the May review is: \u00abHow can Ukraine effectively use \u20ac60 billion in EU defense aid?\u00bb. All previous reviews can be found under the link. Key changes in the Ukrainian economy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43078,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[492,197],"tags":[599,610,696],"experts":[],"news_type":[140],"class_list":["post-43080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy-during-the-war-en","category-research-list-en","tag-international-support-en","tag-war-economy-en","tag-monthly-economic-reviews","news_type-researches"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43080"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43198,"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43080\/revisions\/43198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43080"},{"taxonomy":"experts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/experts?post=43080"},{"taxonomy":"news_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ces.org.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_type?post=43080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}