Netherlands decides to provide Ukraine with an additional 700 million euros for 2026

The Dutch interim government has decided to provide Ukraine with an additional 700 million euros for 2026. The funds became available due to the fact that some ministries were unable to spend their budgets this year, NOS reports.

The decision was made against the background of the risk of a financial gap in support for Ukraine. Previously, the government of Prime Minister Dick Schoof postponed the issue of increasing assistance until the Spring Memorandum of 2025, since the funds for 2026 were spent ahead of schedule.

The initiative was supported by a majority of the Dutch House of Representatives. The leader of the GroenLinks–PvdA bloc, Jesse Klaver, proposed to allocate an additional 2 billion euros to Ukraine in 2025, which was the impetus for finding reserves in next year's budget.

To finance the additional assistance, the government used the remaining funds in various funds. In particular, about 500 million euros remained unused in the Defense Materials Fund due to delays in defense projects, and another 200 million euros remained in the budget of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. An additional effect was the favorable dynamics of the dollar exchange rate.

Due to the urgency of the decision, the ministers of finance, foreign affairs and defense appealed to parliament with a request to agree on the expenditures as soon as possible. In a letter to lawmakers, the interim ministers emphasized that budgetary opportunities remain limited in 2025. "The financial reality is that we will also reach our limits next year," the document states.

Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, the Netherlands has provided Ukraine with about 13.5 billion euros in military aid and another 3.5 billion euros in humanitarian and other support. Last week, the government also announced the allocation of 250 million euros for the purchase of American weapons for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.