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Børge Brende: "We will also get the CEOs together for this"
Photo: JEAN-CHRISTOPHE BOTT / EPA
The President of the World Economic Forum, Børge Brende, has called for a Marshall Plan to rebuild Ukraine.
"Even without a peace agreement, which is not very likely at the moment, we have to start working on reconstruction, at least in the areas that are under Ukrainian control," Brende told the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
It's about infrastructure, electricity, schools, roads and bridges.
"We need a Marshall Plan for Ukraine."
With the Marshall Plan, named after the then US Secretary of State George Marshall, the United States had supported reconstruction in Western Europe with billions in the years after the Second World War.
Brende said he wants to push the call for such a plan at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, which begins on Monday.
“We will also get the CEOs together for this – under the motto 'CEOs for Ukraine'.” The private sector must also play an important role in the country's reconstruction.
"Russia will be back if they comply with international law again"
At the four-day meeting in the Swiss Alps, almost 2,500 participants from politics, business and society discussed solutions to international problems.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be connected via video on Monday.
Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko and his brother Wladimir are also expected.
According to Brende, Russian companies and politicians are excluded from Davos because of the war against Ukraine.
"Russia will be back if they comply with international law again," he announced.
asa/dpa