The EU Commission has indicated that it has no better way to fund Ukraine if Belgium refused to mobilise frozen Russian assets.
EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen outlined three options for funding Kyiv in 2026 at a speech in the European Parliament in Brussels on Thursday (13 November).
The first was using immobilised Russian Central Bank assets being held by Belgian firm Euroclear to underwrite a €140bn 'Reparation Loan' for Kyiv.
"This is the most effective way to sustain Ukraine's defence and its economy," she said.
But Belgium vetoed this proposal at the last EU summit on 23 October, saying it felt too exposed to Russian lawsuits.
And while EU and Belgian experts have been in ongoing talks for the past 21 days to see if the loan model could be tweaked to assuage Belgium's fears, their meetings are yet to bear fruit.
Meanwhile, von der Leyen didn't mention any Reparation Loan-model adjustments in her speech.
Instead, her other two options were for the EU taxpayer, instead of Russia, to pay Kyiv's bills.
Her second option was "to use the [EU] budget's headroom to raise money on capital markets".
The third one was "to have an intergovernmental agreement, that member states raise the necessary capital by themselves," she said.
But neither of these two is likely to prove more attractive to all 27 member states, many of which are already facing higher costs due to the need to buy arms to defend themselves against Russia in future.
And that is without taking into account the threat that Kremlin-friendly Hungary and Slovakia might try to derail them for political reasons.
For their part, other EU capitals are expecting von der Leyen to formally circulate her new options on Ukraine funding well ahead of the last EU summit this year, due on 19 December.
Some had expected her updated proposal to be discussed by EU finance ministers in Brussels on Thursday, but this proved too soon.
And some have little hope it will contain anything more than her Strasbourg speech anyway - setting the scene for a potential repeat of the Belgian veto when leaders meet next month.
"What she [von der Leyen] is likely to do is to put on paper the shortcomings of all the other options, simply in order to push the Reparation Loan again," an EU diplomat said.
Von der Leyen also said to MEPs: "Today, [Russian president Vladimir] Putin still believes he can outlast us. He still thinks that, over time, Russia can achieve its aims on the battlefield".
"Now is the moment to come with a new impetus, to unmask Putin's cynical attempts to buy time and bring him to the negotiating table," she said.
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Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.
Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.