On Thursday 19 September, the European Parliament urged Member States to immediately lift restrictions on the use of Western weapons systems delivered to Ukraine against “legitimate military targets” on Russian territory.
In the joint resolution adopted by the Greens/EFA, S&D, Renew Europe, EPP and ECR groups (425 votes in favour, 131 against and 63 abstentions), MEPs consider that these restrictions “hinder Ukraine’s ability to fully exercise its right to self-defence under international public law and leave Ukraine exposed to attacks on its population and infrastructure”. The request to lift the restrictions was supported by 377 MPs, against 191, mainly from The Left, PfE and ESN. The vast majority of Italian MEPs, whose country opposes the lifting of restrictions on its equipment, also voted against.
The European Parliament also stresses that “insufficient” deliveries of munitions and weapons and restrictions on their use risk undermining the measures taken so far, calling for the commitments made to supply Ukraine with one million artillery shells to be honoured, and for deliveries of weapons to be speeded up, “in particular modern air defence systems and other weapons and munitions in response to clearly identified needs, including Taurus missiles”.
The Parliament also urges the Member States to “actively pressure” the Hungarian government to put an end to the blocking of the ‘European Peace Facility’ and the new Ukraine Assistance Fund. €6.6 billion are currently blocked.
Furthermore, according to MEPs, Member States must honour their commitment to establish military production on Ukrainian territory, recalling also the importance of cooperation with the Ukrainian defence industry and its integration, in the long term, into the Union’s defence industrial and technological base.
More broadly, the European Parliament reaffirms its support for the commitments made by the Union and its Member States to provide humanitarian aid, military support, economic and financial assistance and political support by “all possible means until Ukraine’s victory”.
It calls on the Commission to propose without delay long-term financial assistance for the reconstruction of Ukraine and asks for rapid progress in implementing the G7 decision to grant Ukraine a loan of $50 billion, guaranteed by frozen Russian state assets.
Once again, the Parliament is calling for tougher sanctions against Russia and Belarus “and third countries and entities that supply the Russian military complex with military and dual-use technologies and equipment”, including Iran and North Korea. In their view, a new horizontal sanctions regime also needs to be devised to counter the circumvention of existing measures.
See the resolution: https://aeur.eu/f/dhs (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)