The European Commission is working to ensure that Ukraine receives the first tranche of the Ukraine Facility program in the amount of EUR 4.5 billion in the first half of March, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission Valdis Dombrovskis has said.

The EU is completing the legislative process in the European Parliament, but it is going according to plan, and they are working on the payment already in the first half of March if everything goes according to plan, he told reporters on the sidelines of a roundtable at the Munich Security Conference dedicated to Ukraine's recovery.

Dombrovskis said that this EUR 4.5 billion is intended to be provided as preliminary financing, and no conditions are imposed for the provision of this first tranche.

At the same time, he added, further funding for the Ukraine Facility will be tied to the implementation of the Ukraine Recovery Plan, work on which the Ukrainian government will complete within a few weeks after the final approval of the Ukraine Facility in the EU.

The idea is that this plan needs to be agreed with the European Commission, and then it will become the basis for further payments, Dombrovskis explained.

He recalled that out of the EUR 50 billion Ukraine Facility, EUR 33 billion is macro-financial assistance in loans, while EUR 17 billion will be in grants aimed at Ukraine's recovery.

Asked about the possibility of providing EUR 18 billion in MFA assistance to Ukraine as early as 2024, as Kyiv hopes, the vice-president of the European Commission said that this is something that is still being discussed.

Dombrovskis also said that there is a debate among EU member states about whether to include proceeds from frozen Russian assets in the EUR 50 billion Ukraine Facility or whether these funds will become additional support for Ukraine.

These debates have not yet brought final results, but soon the EU will be preparing a new proposal from the European Commission for the second step on the use of income from Russian assets, the vice-president said.

He recalled that at the moment an agreement has been reached – a zero step, which brought legal clarity that this money does not belong to Russia.

Step one is that the relevant financial institutions, the central securities depositories, must set aside this money in a separate account, and the EU will put forward a proposal in the second stage, namely, that this money will go to the EU budget to support Ukraine, Dombrovskis said, describing the situation. He said that this is what should resolve this discussion.