The European Commission promises to pay Ukraine a tranche of macro-financial assistance in the amount of EUR 5 billion as soon as possible, Executive Vice President of the European Commission Valdis Dombrovskis has said.

"Yesterday I signed the Memorandum of Understanding with Ukraine for the next macro-financial assistance of EUR 5 billion. We will disburse the first part – EUR 2 billion – by mid-October," he said at a press conference on Tuesday in Luxembourg following the meeting of the EU Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN).

"We want to move as fast as possible with disbursing the remainder, with two instalments in November and December, subject to all relevant conditions being met," Dombrovskis said.

On September 20, the EU Council officially approved the decision to provide Ukraine with a EUR 5 billion macro-financial assistance. According to the Council's report, this assistance will be provided to Ukraine in the form of "highly concessional long-term loans."

According to the document, this loan "constitutes the second stage in the implementation of the planned full Union's exceptional macro-financial assistance to Ukraine for up to EUR 9 billion, announced by the European Commission in its communication of May 18, 2022 and endorsed by the European Council on June 23-24, 2022."

Earlier, the EU reported that EUR 1 billion out of a total of EUR 9 billion has already been disbursed.