Half A Loaf

European leaders did what they are known to be good at - a brand of diplomacy aimed at antagonizing neither of two contending parties.

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This is how the 15-hour-long talks at the recent EU summit in Brussels can be summed up as it ended up with a deal on a 90 billion loan to Ukraine to be raised through joint borrowing among 24 of the European Union's (EU) 27 countries. All the member countries agreed to the plan because it is guaranteed by the central EU long-term budget. The new deal is far from the tall talks that had been going on before the summit about using Russian assets, frozen as part of European sanctions against the country for its war against Ukraine, for financing Ukraine's war efforts.