Loans and Grants
How much of the Marshall plan aid was Germany supposed to repay?
Marshall Plan
The Marshall plan, just as GARIOA, consisted of aid both in the form of grants and in the form of loans. Out of the total, 1.2 billion USD were loan-aid. Ireland which received 146.2 million USD through the Marshall plan, received 128.2 million USD as loans, and the remaining 18 million USD as grants. By 1969 the Irish Marshal plan debt, which was still being repaid, amounted to 31 million pounds, out of a total Irish foreign debt of 50 million pounds. The UK received 385 million USD of its Marshall plan aid in the form of loans. Unconnected to the Marshall plan the UK also received direct loans from the US amounting to 4.6 billion USD. The proportion of Marshall plan loans versus Marshall plan grants was roughly 15% to 85% for both the UK and France. Germany, which up until the 1953 Debt agreement had to work on the assumption that all the Marshall plan aid was to be repaid, spent its funds very carefully. Payment for Marshall plan goods, "counterpart funds", were administered by the Reconstruction Credit Institute, which used the funds for loans inside Germany. In the 1953 Debt agreement the amount of Marshall plan aid that Germany was to repay was reduced to less than 1 billion USD. This made the proportion of loans versus grants to Germany similar to that of France and the UK. The final German loan repayment was made in 1971. Since Germany chose to repay the aid debt out of the German Federal budget, leaving the German ERP fund intact, the fund was able to continue its reconstruction work. By 1996 it had accumulated a value of 23 billion Deutsche Mark.