Fifty billion, tied to a plan

In June 2023 the European Commission proposed something structurally different from what had come before: one instrument, four years, combining grants, concessional loans and investment guarantees, with disbursement tied to a plan that Ukraine would write itself.

That last point is the design decision worth noticing. Not a list of conditions handed over, but a plan — reforms, investments, sequencing — drafted by the recipient government, assessed, agreed, and then paid against as milestones are met.

Why ownership changes behaviour

I have worked with both models. Conditions imposed from outside are met minimally and reversed quietly. A plan a government wrote and publicly committed to has domestic authorship, and domestic authorship is what survives a change of minister.

It also gave everyone else a document to work from. A company planning an investment could read what the state intended to reform and when, which is a far better basis for a decision than a general expectation that things will improve.