Plans are well afoot to launch a multi-billion international fund for Ukraine to help reform the country, a former Lithuanian prime minister has said.

Speaking to a Polish-language radio broadcaster in Lithuania, Andrius Kubilius voiced hope that the new “Marshall Plan” for Ukraine would be approved at an upcoming summit of the European Union’s Eastern Partnership programme in Brussels later this month.

Plans include allocating EUR 50 billion to Ukraine over 10 years to develop the country’s small and medium-sized enterprise sector, according to Kubilius.

Speaking on Radio Znad Wilii, a broadcaster based in Vilnius, Lithuania, Kubilius said that the plan, an initiative to support Ukraine by the European Union, had been presented in most EU capitals.

Kubilius told the broadcaster that the support plan originated last spring and that financial help for Ukraine under the initiative could also be provided by non-EU countries including the United States and Canada, which is home to a large Ukrainian community.

The "Marshall Plan" for Ukraine provides for setting up a special fund as well as an organisation that would monitor how money earmarked for reforming the country is being spent, Kubilius said.

Kubilius is a Lithuanian politician who was the country's prime minister from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012.

Radio Znad Wilii is a Vilnius-based radio station broadcasting in Polish since 1992.

The Eastern Partnership, an initiative by Poland and Sweden, was launched in 2009 to forge closer political and economic ties between the EU and its eastern neighbours.

(gs/pk)

Source: Radio Znad Wilii (zw.lt)