Ukraine Facility: A vital step for Ukraine's recovery, reconstruction and EU accession

​The European Committee of the Regions has hailed the European Council's decision to approve a €50 billion package of support for Ukraine as "a stepping stone towards Ukraine's accession to the EU".

The support instrument – called the Ukraine Facility – was approved on 1 February and money and associated implementation plan will, until at least 2027, frame the European Union's efforts to help Ukraine meet its emergency needs and recover and reconstruct its communities and economy in the face of Russia's ongoing invasion.

The CoR's rapporteur on the Ukraine Facility is Dario Nardella (IT/PES), mayor of Florence. He said: "At last, white smoke on the Facility for the reconstruction of Ukraine! The sustainable reconstruction building on the full involvement of cities and regions must start straight away – no more time to lose! And let's use the Facility to be a stepping stone towards Ukraine's accession to the EU."

Aleksandra Dulkiewicz (PL/EPP), mayor of Gdańsk and the chair of the CoR's Working Group on Ukraine, said: "In December, EU leaders gave the Ukrainian people the prospect of becoming citizens of the European Union. Today, they gave them a clear plan and a large sum of money to accelerate their country's journey to the European Union. A large part of the work in front of Ukraine will have to be done by Ukraine's cities and regions. The EU's local and regional administrations are committed to helping them all the way."

The European Committee of the Regions has a 10-point support package for Ukraine, which aims to prepare Ukraine for membership of the EU as well as to help Ukraine's recovery and reconstruction in the face of Russia's invasion. The CoR also serves as the secretariat of the European Alliance of Cities and Regions for the Reconstruction of Ukraine, which it co-founded in June 2022.

One element in the support package is an offer of office space for representatives of the cities of Lviv and Vinnytsia, the region of Dnipropetrovsk, the Association of Ukrainian Cities, and the All-Ukrainian Association of Communities.

On 31 January, Région Grand Est became the first EU region to follow suit, by enabling Ukrainian administrations to use its representative offices in Brussels.

The region of Kharkiv and the All-Ukrainian Association of the District and Regional Councils will now be able to use Grand Est's offices as a base from which to reach out to the EU's institutions for emergency aid and for longer-term support for recovery and reconstruction.

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Contact:

Andrew Gardner

Tel: +32 473 843 981

andrew.gardner@cor.europa.eu