Supporting Ukraine on the path to recovery

Doing exactly that, the EIF has recently launched a new pilot initiative through the InvestEU programme - called the Export Credit Pilot - aiming to support Export Credit Agencies across the EU in their quest to boost trade with Ukraine. Ultimately, this will contribute to boosting economic activity in the country and strengthen ties with Europe.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 came with sirens and smoke. Beyond the horror of another war on European soil, its quieter toll echoed through shuttered warehouses, broken contracts, and frozen trade. Ukraine’s GDP fell by nearly 30% since the beginning of the war, and direct damage to infrastructure has been estimated at more than $150bn.

At the same time, SME exports have contracted by 35%, with 5 million people employed by the SME sector in Ukraine facing risks of losing their jobs. Trade with the EU — its largest partner — has been thrown into disarray as supply chains fractured and investment flows stalled.

It’s now been three and a half years. Three and a half years of trying to hold the line, rebuild what’s been lost, and imagine life without it. The EIB Group has stepped up to the challenge, providing more than €3.5bn in financial support to Ukraine. One of the most recent initiatives is the Ukraine Export Credit Pilot, an innovative initiative managed by the EIF that aims to rejuvenate trade flows by reducing the risk factor for European businesses and re-connecting them to their Ukrainian counterparts.

Export credit agencies (ECAs) have been established with the goal of facilitating domestic companies’ international exports. Most countries have ECAs that provide loans, loan guarantees, and insurance to reduce the uncertainty of exporting to other countries. Essentially they aim to support exporters and boost trade flows.

Launched by the EIB Group and the European Commission in July 2024, the Ukraine Export Credit Pilot is a €300 million guarantee facility designed to support EU companies exporting to Ukraine.

It's a financial instrument with a clear mission: reduce the risk of doing business in a war-torn market and keep trade flowing. Backed by the InvestEU programme, the official export credit agencies in EU Member States act as intermediaries, facilitating the deals.

Within the €300 million guarantee, 13 deals are expected across EU Member States in the initial phase. The first deals materialised in May 2025, when Danish export credit agency EIFO and the EIF signed a deal worth €20 million.

Since then, six additional deals have materialised in Italy, Finland, Romania, Latvia, Slovakia and Slovenia, for a total guarantee amount of close to €150m - with more in the pipeline.

In practice, ECAs will be issuing seller's credit (i.e. export insurance), buyer's credit (i.e. helping the importer with cashflow) or letters of credit (issued by a Ukrainian bank and confirmed by an EU bank) in order to boost trade flow. The guarantee covers the risks of default on payments of goods and services purchased exclusively by Ukrainian importers from EU-based exporters.

Amid the uncertainty, this pilot offers something steady. And the benefits are both practical and far-reaching. It will help to restore the disrupted trade flows — and even ensure that essential goods and services — like pharmaceuticals and agricultural products — continue to reach Ukraine.

But it also does something quieter: it brings structure, builds trust and closer ties. Through InvestEU and EIF requirements, the pilot promotes transparency, accountability, and alignment with standard EU practice for Ukrainian importers.

It’s a demanding process — but one that helps build trust across the financial ecosystem between the EU and Ukraine. In a landscape still shaped by war, this kind of technical and financial cooperation offers something rare: a sense of normalcy, and a path forward.

These efforts have also taken another form, as, through the EU4Business programme, the EIF, alongside EIB Global, has been working on extending loan portfolio guarantees to several banks in Ukraine. The goal is to build loan portfolios exceed €100m for more than 1500 Ukrainian businesses, at more favourable terms, making financing that little bit more accessible and the recovery more tangible.

The Ukrainian Export Credit Pilot and the loan portfolio guarantees are a source of pride for the EIF. In our own way, we are contributing to the recovery of the Ukrainian nation by doing what we've done for 30+ years - supporting small and medium-sized business by improving their access to finance.

We believe that as Ukraine moves toward recovery and deeper integration with the EU, quiet technical efforts like these help build the resilience and economic ties needed today - so that the transition to a more peaceful, stable Ukraine can happen tomorrow.

And it's also a good-news story for the EU more broadly. The InvestEU programme has provided the flexibility and openness for the export credit pilot to materialise.

It's critical that EU financial instruments are able to adapt to changing circumstances around us and that we are able to respond with decisive action, efficiently and effectively as a financial institutions.

The export credit pilot proves that this is possible. And this is something we need to keep in mind for the architecture of the future budget. But the real impact is in Ukraine.