ECB’s Lagarde warns against breaking EU law with Ukraine loan

EU leaders will find a solution to the problem of how to get money to Ukraine but must stay on the right side of the law, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said Thursday.
Addressing a press conference in Frankfurt after the ECB’s Governing Council meeting, Lagarde said she was “confident” that heads of government meeting in Brussels would thrash out a mechanism for lending to Kyiv, but immediately warned against expecting the ECB to underwrite it.
“We are an area of the world which praises itself for respecting the rule of law,” Lagarde said. “I’m sure that there are solutions that can be debated and discussed, and … constructions that can be elaborated, but it’s not for the central bank to actually encourage [or]support a mechanism under which we would be called upon — and scheduled — to breach Article 123 of the Treaty.”



