Mitsotakis on Ukraine Aid, EU Budget & Farmers’ Protests | EU Summit | Amaravati Today
📅 Dec 21, 2025AT World News8 MIN3 VIEWS20 SEGMENTS · 4 SPEAKERS
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis delivers a departure doorstep statement after the European Council meeting in Brussels on December 19, 2025. He outlines the agreed financial solution to support Ukraine through a loan from the EU budget margin, stressing minimal impact on member states and noting that the use of frozen Russian assets remains under legal review. Mitsotakis also reaffirms Greece’s strong backing for the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework, with particular emphasis on Cohesion Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy. On European defense, he reiterates the need to move...
Questions asked in this interview
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3:34Will Greece's role be discussed in the coming days in Gaza, in the talks you will have on Monday in Ramallah and in Jerusalem?
5:19And also, are you concerned about huge queues and blockades during the Christmas period?
Mr. President, the European Council finally concluded on a bridge loan based on joint borrowing for the financing of Ukraine. On the one hand, there are the fiscal concessions of this solution, and on the other, it is estimated that there is now the political ground for a more permanent form of fiscal solidarity, or are we remaining in an ad hoc call due to crises?
First, an extensive discussion took place which examined both options for financing Ukraine proposed by the European Commission. I believe that the solution that prevailed, a loan from the margin of the European budget, which practically means it has no fiscal consequences for any European country, was the appropriate solution, considering the complexity and legal difficulties of the endeavor to utilize frozen Russian assets at this moment.
This possibility was not excluded in the conclusions we agreed upon, but it still requires more processing time in case we end up with this solution. In any case, the message sent by the European Council is that Ukraine can cover its immediate financial needs and that Europe stands firmly by Ukraine's side, using, as I said, the margin of the European budget, without practical fiscal consequences for the member states.
Good morning from me as well. I wanted to focus a bit on the multiannual financial framework. Mr. President, you also highlighted this issue today at the summit. The resources for cohesion and for the common agricultural policy are very important for Greece. I would like to ask if you see any risk in the next multiannual financial framework for defense and for Ukraine that the resources needed will require sacrificing some others that are important for Greece and for other countries.
I think we are getting ahead of ourselves, Ms. Hardalia. Essentially, the discussions on the multiannual financial framework are just beginning now. While the basic principle has been agreed upon, no specific proposal has been made yet beyond the Commission's initial position regarding the amounts and how they are allocated to the different categories of the European budget.
One thing is certain, and this emerged from today's discussion: there is a critical mass of countries, I would call them friends of cohesion and the common agricultural policy, that will not essentially accept cuts to these two programs, which form the two basic pillars on which the entire framework of European funding has been built in recent decades. However, I estimate that these negotiations will be complex and difficult.
The Cypriot presidency, which takes over in 12 days from now, will presumably present its first proposals for the specific allocations of resources, and we hope and wish that in a year from now we will be able to agree on the next multiannual framework.
Mr. Dikos Arvenis from the Athens News Agency and ME.
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Mitsotakis, K. (2025, December 21). Mitsotakis on Ukraine Aid, EU Budget & Farmers’ Protests | EU Summit | Amaravati Today [Interview transcript]. AT World News. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/967789/
MLA
Kyriakos Mitsotakis. "Mitsotakis on Ukraine Aid, EU Budget & Farmers’ Protests | EU Summit | Amaravati Today." AT World News, 21 Dec. 2025. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/967789/.
BibTeX
@misc{mitsotakis2025_967789,
author = {Kyriakos Mitsotakis},
title = {Mitsotakis on Ukraine Aid, EU Budget \& Farmers’ Protests | EU Summit | Amaravati Today},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, AT World News. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2025},
month = {dec},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/967789/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
