On Thursday 3 April in Warsaw, High Representative of the Union Kaja Kallas announced that her €5 billion initiative to supply Ukraine with at least two million shells by 2025 was on the right track.
“Things are moving very well. (...) We already have different proposals - different countries are coming with their input to this. So we have already over 50% of what is needed”, she announced at the end of the informal meeting of Defence Ministers, adding that this initiative was “both realistic and achievable”. However, Mrs Kallas acknowledged that some Member States were opposed to their shell deliveries being included in this initiative. “It is important that Ukraine obtains the ammunition very quickly”, she insisted.
From Brussels, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky announced on the same day that his country’s initiative to supply Ukraine with ammunition purchased from around the world had secured funding to continue monthly deliveries until September 2025.
In addition to munitions, Swedish Defence Minister Pål Jonson supported the High Representative’s idea of a pledged European commitment of up to €40 billion in annual military aid for Ukraine. “I don’t know how feasible it is, but it shows that we want a forward-looking and ambitious approach from the EU”, he explained. No agreement has yet been reached between the Member States.
According to Mrs Kallas, the Ministers also discussed how the EU can provide security guarantees alongside the ‘coalition of the willing’. “The EU has many tools at its disposal, ranging from financing the Ukrainian defence industry to expanding the training programme for soldiers and stepping up pressure through sanctions”, she stressed, adding that the best guarantee of security lay in a strong Ukrainian army.
Ministers welcome the ‘White Paper’. The Ministers also discussed the ‘Defence White Paper’, presented on 19 March by the European Commission and the High Representative. “We all talked about the importance of the ‘White Paper’”, said Polish Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz. According to him, “it is a revolutionary document for the European Union. Never before in the history of the Union has there been such a defence strategy”. He called for its immediate implementation, “otherwise it will be a grand strategy that will never be achieved”. The Minister listed a number of actions to be undertaken, including space and cyber-attacks, the ‘Eastern Shield’, different types of drones, defence systems and enhanced military mobility.
“This ‘White Paper’ is an important step for Austria towards strengthening and developing Europe’s defence preparedness”, added Arnold Kammel, Secretary General of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Defence, welcoming the measures proposed in the document.
While the ‘White Paper’ emphasises European preference, the Dutch Minister, Ruben Brekelmans, felt in particular that it was necessary to speed up the development of the defence industry and “keep other partners on board”, citing the United States.
His Latvian counterpart, Andris Sprūd, has called for grants to be added to the SAFE instrument, which currently only includes loans. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)