EU leaders on Friday agreed to provide a €90bn loan to Ukraine raised through common borrowing after abandoning a more contentious and complex scheme using frozen Russian central bank assets. The two-year lifeline is undoubtedly good for Ukraine, giving it cash to sustain its fight against Russian aggression, purchase foreign arms and invest in its own weapons production. A failure to agree the funding would have undermined Ukraine’s defences and its position in US-brokered peace talks with Moscow. It would have also shown the EU to be incapable of protecting its own security let alone of being the geopolitical actor it aspires to be.

Issuing common EU debt is a more straightforward way of helping Ukraine than tapping the Russian assets. But it also comes with disadvantages. It means European taxpayers paying the bill, not the Russian aggressor, and it creates a freeriding risk. Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, which oppose more aid for Ukraine, agreed to it in return for a carve-out. Others may demand the same treatment in the future.

Germany and other northern states pushed the Russian assets scheme because they were sceptical about the alternative of common borrowing. Unable to convince Belgium, where most of the frozen assets are held, they thankfully agreed to common debt as a plan B.