On the occasion of the visit to Brussels of the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, announced new support of €194 million for training the Ukrainian armed forces as part of the European Union Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine (EUMAM Ukraine).
“The Member States have agreed to increase financial support for the training mission for Ukraine, which is one of the most successful missions we have undertaken. This is around €200 million more, in line with the growing scale and complexity of the training activities of this mission, which has already trained 34,000 soldiers to date”, he announced.
Through the European Peace Facility, support will take the form of necessary lethal and non-lethal equipment and supplies, as well as services to support training activities. “The financial amount has been increased by €194 million to €255 million”, according to a Council press release. Mr Borrell pointed out that the EU and its Member States had so far spent €27 billion on military support for Ukraine.
For his part, Mr Kuleba stressed the need to create a “common pan-European defence area where countries are aligned, defence industrial policies are coordinated and processes are synchronised and rationalised”. He also called for the creation of a European and Euro-Atlantic defence industrial complex.
In addition to military support, Mr Borrell and Mr Kuleba discussed the security guarantees that the EU intends to provide to Ukraine. The Deputy Secretary-General for Common Security and Defence of the European External Action Service will visit Ukraine next week to discuss the issue with the authorities so that Mr Borrell can report back to the European Council in December, as requested.
For Mr Borrell, the process of Ukraine’s accession to the EU is the “best guarantee of security”. The European Council is due to decide on the opening of negotiations in December, but Hungary could block the decision.
The High Representative and the Minister also discussed the 12th package of sanctions against Russia, currently under discussion between the Member States. Mr Borrell hoped that the sanctions could be adopted at the ‘Foreign Affairs’ Council on 11 December. Mr Kuleba called for sanctions to be introduced to eliminate Russia’s capacity to produce drones and missiles, adding that certain measures were included in the 12th package.
He also called for a decision on the use of frozen assets and on the €50 billion ‘Ukraine Facility’. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)