00:00 The war in Ukraine leading the agenda at an EU summit, leaders gathering in Brussels for day two amid a shortage of manpower and ammunition.
00:08 The EU is considering using proceeds from frozen Russian assets to help finance Kiev's fight against Moscow.
00:15 Knock-on effects of the war also being addressed today.
00:19 Armen Georgian, our Europe editor, is standing by in Brussels. We can speak to him now.
00:24 Hello to you, Armen. One of the big concerns for Ukraine is that it might have its special access to EU markets restricted.
00:31 What's the latest on that?
00:32 Yeah, just before I come on to that, Will, on the question of frozen assets that you mentioned, just two very quick points.
00:43 It's important to point out that we're talking about profits on frozen assets, not the assets themselves.
00:49 So that's actually a much smaller figure, estimated at 3 billion euros, much smaller than what the assets themselves are worth.
00:56 Also, the final summit conclusions on that point are very guarded, and they make it clear that there is no agreement on exactly what this money will be spent.
01:06 Some EU members wanted it to be spent on weapons for Ukraine.
01:09 That is not going to happen.
01:11 Hungary and Slovakia, which don't want to have more military aid to Ukraine, would not be on board with that decision.
01:17 So this is still very much work in progress.
01:19 Now, on the question of trade access for Ukraine, it's a bit of a mixed bag.
01:25 On the one hand, yes, Ukraine's tariff-free access to the EU market has been extended for an extra year,
01:34 but with some important caveats, because there are certain products that will have caps applied to them.
01:40 And this is, of course, all an effort by the EU member states to do something in response to these protests by farmers across the EU,
01:49 who've been saying that they're being undercut by this unfair Ukrainian competition.
01:54 So the agriculture discussion is going on, I believe, around this lunchtime in Brussels.
01:59 We should have some final conclusions on that.
02:02 And obviously, I'll get back to you with more.
02:04 Yeah, Armen, earlier this morning, some economic and financial matters took center stage.
02:09 What more can you tell us?
02:14 Yes, so the economic discussion really stemmed from the fact that banking stocks were down because of the events around Deutsche Bank.
02:25 And so this was a point where EU leaders and also the head of the European Central Bank,
02:31 Christine Lagarde, tried to reassure everybody to say that the banking sector in the eurozone is resilient.
02:39 And several EU leaders echoed that message from Christine Lagarde.
02:44 They also mentioned the various reforms in European banking sector that have been brought into play since that financial crisis of 2008,
02:53 which has cost such a long shadow over the last 15 years that it's still being talked about to this day.
02:59 But of course, some of the innovations that were mooted in the wake of that crisis all those years ago have not come to pass.
03:05 Things like the capital markets union, the Belgian prime minister,
03:08 Alexander de Kool, was again calling for that kind of integration of the banking system.
03:14 But again, some member states are jittery about that kind of convergence of national rules.
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