At the European Council meeting on 17 and 18 October, European leaders are expected to once again call on their States to step up military support for Ukraine. The Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, has complained on several occasions that the support is too slow and insufficient.
According to a draft set of conclusions dated Saturday 5 October and obtained by Agence Europe, the European Council is expected to call for “rapidly stepping up military support and accelerating its delivery, in particular air defence systems, ammunition and missiles which are urgently needed to protect Ukraine’s population and critical energy infrastructure”.
The leaders asked their ministers to “swiftly” finalise work on assistance measures under the ‘European Peace Facility’ (EPF), “that will further incentivise the delivery of military support to Ukraine”. Hungary, which currently holds the Presidency of the EU Council, has for months been blocking the adoption of several pieces of legislation that would make it possible to release €6.6 billion under the EPF.
The European Council is also expected to stress the importance of increasing support for the defence industry. On Monday 7 October, at a conference organised by the think-tank EPC, the First Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and a member of the country’s EU accession negotiating team, Oleksandr Korniyenko, stressed the importance of strengthening cooperation on military defence between Ukrainian and EU military sectors and companies. In his view, in addition to investment, it is important to have cooperation in strategic management and in all areas of production.
Furthermore, according to the draft conclusions, while Russia continues its intense bombardment of energy infrastructure, the European Council should support all efforts, “both public and private”, to urgently increase Ukraine’s energy security ahead of winter and address the immediate humanitarian and civil protection needs of the Ukrainian population, “while making Ukraine’s energy system more resilient in the long term”. In this context, the European Council is expected to call for further integration of Ukraine’s energy system into the Union’s unified energy network.
Although, for the moment, the draft conclusions make no mention of Ukraine’s EU accession process, Mr Korniyenko hoped that his country would join the Union after the European elections in 2029. “According to EU accession tradition, this will take place after the European elections. The next ones will be in 2029. So, as far as I’m concerned, we’ll join after that. We will do everything in our power to be ready before the elections”, he explained.
He pointed out that since the start of the Russian invasion, his parliament had passed 745 pieces of legislation, 700 of which relate to European integration.
See the draft conclusions of the European Council: https://aeur.eu/f/dqz (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)