ROME: European leaders urged private business and equity on Thursday to invest in rebuilding Ukraine now, even as Russia accelerates its war, as they opened an annual recovery conference with announcements of a new equity fund and public-private partnerships amid uncertainties of the U.S. commitment to Kyiv’s defense.
Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy kicked off the proceedings in Rome as Russia pounded Ukraine’s capital with another major missile and drone attack overnight in some of the heaviest attacks on Kyiv in the more than three-year war.
The conference is expected to finalize individual deals of guarantees and grants to unlock more than 10 billion euros (around $12 billion) in investments, Meloni said. The European Commission, for its part, announced the creation of the largest equity fund to date to support Ukraine, the European Flagship Fund for the Reconstruction of Ukraine.
“The message we want to send today to businesses is: Don’t be afraid to invest to build and rebuild Ukraine,” Meloni told the gathering of business, political and development representatives. “The reconstruction of Ukraine is not a risk. It’s an investment in a nation that has shown more resilience than any other.”
He repeated his call for Russia’s frozen assets, and not just the interest, to be used, and called again for a Marshall Plan-style coordinated reconstruction effort.
It’s the fourth such conference on Ukraine’s recovery, with earlier editions in Lugano, Switzerland in 2022, London in 2023 and Berlin last year.
“It’s basically a platform where a lot of businesses, European businesses and Ukrainian businesses, meet up and network, where you can actually see this public-private partnership in action, because obviously public money is not enough to undertake this gigantic effort of restructuring a country,” said Eleonora Tafuro Ambrosetti, senior research fellow at the Rome-based Institute for Studies of International Politics, or ISPI.
The World Bank Group, European Commission and the United Nations have estimated that Ukraine’s recovery after more than three years of war will cost $524 billion (€506 billion) over the next decade.
Ukraine’s partners focusing on industries, issues
Alexander Temerko, a Ukrainian-British businessman, said that the Rome conference was different from its predecessors, because it is focused on specific industries and issues, not just vague talk about the need to rebuild. The program includes practical workshops on such topics as “de-risking” investment, and panel discussions on investing in Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, pharmaceutical and domestic defense industries.
“This is the first conference which is considering particularly projects in the energy sector, the mining sector, the metallurgical sector, the infrastructure sector, the transport sector, which need to be restored in Ukraine and during the war especially,” he said. “That is the special particularity of this conference.”
In addition to Meloni and Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, European Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen, as well as economy and or foreign ministers from other European countries are coming.
