The European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, gave an update on Tuesday 23 May in Brussels on the progress of European projects to provide Ukraine with the ammunition it needs to defend itself against Russian military aggression (see EUROPE 13145/1).
At this stage, the Member States have delivered “220,000 rounds of ammunition of all calibres and 1,300 missiles”, said Borrell at the end of the Defence Council, which is “a much better projection than 10 days ago”. They did this by drawing on their own stocks or by rerouting pre-existing orders. According to Mr Borrell, by the 31 May deadline, the €1 billion target for reimbursement from the European Peace Facility (EPF) for these munitions and missiles should be met.
Work on joint procurement of ammunition (155 mm calibre) – again with €1 billion from the EFF – is also continuing, with procurement under the European Defence Agency and two other projects, led by Germany and France, according to Mr Borrell.
Participating in a lunch with European ministers, NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, stressed the importance of close cooperation among Allies to “strengthen the transatlantic industrial base”, arguing that NATO sets the standards to ensure armaments interoperability.
Mr Borrell did not see any contradiction in Mr Stoltenberg’s speech with the European projects. “I am sure that the American industry buys ammunition from Europe and that the European industry buys ammunition from the United States”, he said, stressing the importance for the EU arms industry of expanding its production capabilities.
EPF In addition, the EU Council failed on Tuesday to agree on the allocation of a €500 million tranche of the ‘European Peace Facility’ for the reimbursement of arms delivered by Member States to Ukraine.
Budapest is blocking this additional tranche as long as the Ukrainians consider that the Hungarian bank OTP supports the Russian war effort. But the High Representative believes that a favourable outcome could be reached within a few days.
Discussions on increasing the EPF allocation to €3.5 billion were also unsuccessful. According to Borrell, however, “a large majority of Member States” are in favour, so an agreement should be reached before the next Foreign Affairs Council, scheduled for the end of June. The High Representative said that about “half” of this increase will go to EU support to countries other than Ukraine, referring to a specific request from Hungary.
Finally, Mr Borrell said the EU had already trained 20,000 Ukrainian military personnel, with the figure of 30,000 to be reached by the end of 2023. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)