European Union defense ministers cautiously welcomed a plan to send Ukraine ammunition from their existing stocks, but urged the bloc to work faster on jointly procuring shells to jump-start production.
(Bloomberg) — European Union defense ministers cautiously welcomed a plan to send Ukraine ammunition from their existing stocks, but urged the bloc to work faster on jointly procuring shells to jump-start production.
“What is crucial is that Ukrainians direly need ammunition and we have to ramp up production within Europe,” Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson told reporters in Stockholm ahead of a meeting with his EU counterparts. “The primary objective is to procure from the European industrial base but if there are other deliveries from other states I don’t think we should exclude that possibility.”
The European Commission, the EU’s executive body, last week circulated a three-track plan, proposing to immediately transfer ammunition to Ukraine, particularly 155mm artillery rounds, from existing stocks or pending orders. It also called for aggregating orders to European industry and pledged to propose measures to cut back on red-tape or other bottlenecks hindering the industry from ramping up output.
At issue is an urgent need to supply Ukraine with more ammunition but also refill member states’ existing stocks, as Ukrainian and Russian forces burn through tens of thousands of artillery shells each day and plan offensives this spring. And while Ukraine is firing ammunition at a more efficient rate, it’s still using up shells faster than Europe can produce them.
But the EU’s proposal didn’t clarify how any joint procurement would be funded, raising doubts over whether its leaders can sign off on that part of the plan when they meet in Brussels on March 23-24, according to diplomats.
The leaders aim to approve the plan to ease the immediate provision of ammunition to Ukraine, including through joint procurement and the mobilization of appropriate funding, according to a draft of their final statement seen by Bloomberg. The document is subject to change.
To encourage those immediate deliveries, the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell is set to propose using €1 billion ($1.1 billion) from the bloc’s European Peace Facility to reimburse member states that send munitions from their own stocks, potentially at a rate of up to 90%.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told reporters in Stockholm that €1 billion to buy shells won’t be enough, adding his country needs about four times as much. Borrell told reporters shortly afterward that “Money doesn’t come from the sky.”
‘Be Realistic’
“If member states are ready to provide more, then we will have it,” Borrell said. “But today let’s be realistic and pragmatic. Don’t discuss about the infinity, discuss about the thing that can be adopted today.”
Without contracts for new orders, for instance through joint purchases among the bloc’s member states, the EU plan may not be enough to spur the bloc’s industry to speed up production of ammunition. The European defense industry for years faced limited investment, and companies are looking for contracts before investing in new facilities and production lines given the costs involved.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said the EU ammunition proposal “is important and necessary, but one can’t avoid the fact that over the next few weeks and months we’ll have to grapple with shortages.” Pistorius said that “right now we need to find stocks jointly and to deliver whatever we can – to supply within the context of our own defense capabilities and the capacities of the alliance.”
The EPF, the mechanism the EU is currently using to reimburse nations for weapons deliveries to Ukraine, could also be used to directly procure ammunition but would likely require raising the facility’s budget ceiling. EU member states in December agreed to raise the fund’s €5.7 billion ceiling by €2 billion, with a possibility to add several more billion euros at a later stage.
Another critical element EU member states will need to agree on is whether any funding is used only for European companies or whether American or Asian companies will also be able to benefit. That prospect may speed deliveries to Ukraine, but wouldn’t spur as much production in Europe.
–With assistance from Alberto Nardelli and Patrick Donahue.
(Updates with Reznikov, Borrell, Pistorius from eighth paragraph)
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