MNI BRIEF: EU Summit Will Focus On Reparation Loan For Ukraine

The focus of Thursday's EU summit will be on approving a loan to Ukraine using immobilised Russian assets, but that the reservations of Belgium remain important despite the fact that such a loan can be approved by a qualified majority vote, senior EU officials said. 

The second option proposed by the European Commission of using instead the "headroom" within the EU budget to issue EU bonds to finance Ukraine's 2026 financing needs has now been "put back on the shelf" because it would require unanimity. 

The officials also said that the pooling of other cash balances on Russian assets being held in EU countries apart from Euroclear in Belgium was "one of the questions being negotiated" and that "positive" news on that could be expected.