Does the EU Need to Be a Military Power?

Under the International Monetary Fund rules, a government has to have at least 12 months of financing in place to receive funds from the IMF under a bailout programme. The Washington-based lender has identified a 15 billion dollars shortfall in its bailout for war-torn Ukraine. This financial gap has to be closed by the end of January. If Kiev doesn’t receive additional funds from a coalition of Western donors, the IMF will have to suspend disbursements from its current 17 billion dollars bailout programme, which was agreed in April 2014. A third of that sum has been provided to Kiev so far.