German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has called for a new “Marshall Plan” to rebuild Ukraine.
Speaking at a Berlin conference on the reconstruction of Ukraine on Tuesday, Scholz said Russia’s continued drone attacks represented a new point in its war against Ukraine, but were also a sign of Moscow’s desperation.
He went on to say that Germany’s own history showed that it was possible to rebuild even after a devastating war, and so it was important to plan for Ukraine’s future as a prosperous and democratic member of the EU.
“This conference is about creating a Marshall Plan for the 21st century,” he was quoted as saying.
The Marshall Plan was a US-sponsored initiative that helped revive the economies of Western Europe after World War II.
Otherwise, national leaders, development experts and CEOs have gathered in Berlin for a conference on what its hosts describe as a “Marshall Plan” to rebuild Ukraine.
The conference was organized by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the European Commission.
Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch an all-out invasion of Ukraine in February has resulted in thousands of deaths and the destruction of homes and factories.
While the war has been condemned as illegal by most in the West, Moscow still describes it as a “special military operation” to rid its neighbor of neo-Nazi extremists.
“The form of reconstruction will shape the kind of country Ukraine will be in the future,” Scholz and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote earlier.
“A state governed by law with strong institutions? An agile and modern economy? A living democracy that belongs to Europe? While we should always be careful with historical comparisons, this is no less than a Marshall Plan for the 21st century”, they wrote, considering the reconstruction of Ukraine as a “generational task”.
Speaking at a business forum, Scholz expressed Germany’s wishes that Ukraine could one day become a member of the European Union, a fact that donors should take into account when faced with the huge sums that reconstruction would cost.
“Putin’s war has united our countries”, he said at the forum.