Polish party says Ukraine’s foreign debt should be cancelled
A Polish political group has called for Ukraine’s foreign debt to be written off as the country battles the Russian invasion.
Poland’s leftist opposition Razem (Together) party has called for Ukraine’s foreign debt to be written off as the country battles the Russian invasion.Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
The opposition Razem (Together) party made the appeal at a news conference in Poland’s parliament on Thursday, state news agency PAP reported.
The proposal came after Ukraine’s official creditors, a group that includes Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Britain and the United States, said on Wednesday that, on Ukraine’s request, they would provide a coordinated suspension of debt servicing from August 1 to the end of 2023 and potentially for one additional year, according to the Reuters news agency.
These countries also urged bondholders to accept Ukraine’s request for the two-year payment freeze.
’We are demanding that Ukraine’s foreign debt be cancelled’
Polish MPs Maciej Konieczny and Adrian Zandberg, both with the leftist Razem party, told reporters that the freeze “is a step in the right direction, but an insufficient one.”
Konieczny argued that foreign debt “is a gigantic burden on Ukraine’s budget,” having accounted for a third of all expenditures before the war.
“As Ukraine fights the Russian aggressor, also on our behalf, expecting them to pay off foreign debt is outrageous,” the Polish lawmaker added.
Konieczny stated: “And so we, the Razem party, together with the Ukrainian Social Movement and partners around the world, are demanding that Ukraine’s foreign debt be cancelled, or, where the creditors are private banks, that Ukraine’s foreign debt be taken over by institutions such as the European Central Bank.”
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, Reuters
