EU floats initiative to provide Ukraine more military support

BRUSSELS – The European Union is working on an initiative to provide Ukraine with additional military support as soon as possible for 2025, according to a document seen by Bloomberg News.

The aim is to deliver at least 1.5 million rounds of artillery ammunition, air defence systems, deep-precision strike missiles and drones, as well as support to train and equip brigades and bolster ties between the defence industries of the EU and Ukraine, the document says.

The EU has been rushing to come up with plans to support Ukraine, provide the country with security guarantees in the event of a peace agreement with Russia and ramp up its own defence spending since US President Donald Trump set the clock ticking on negotiations with Moscow.

A group of countries met in Paris on Feb 17

to start drawing up their response after US officials at the Munich Security Conference last week said in stark terms that there’s a limit to how much the US is prepared to do.

With the overall needs likely to run up to hundreds of billions of euros, one challenge is that member states have differing views on exactly what to do and how to fund it, several officials said.

More tangible discussions will be taking place after this weekend’s German elections, the officials said.

The early draft of the initiative seen by Bloomberg does not contain a price tag, but suggests that member states would be assigned a financial quota based on the size of their economy and can choose to meet that in-kind or in cash.

Non-EU members would also be invited to contribute to the initiative, the document indicates.

The president of the European Council, Mr Antonio Costa, is consulting with member states on how each can contribute to security guarantees and further support for Ukraine, and could call an extraordinary summit of the bloc’s leaders only once there is enough ground to take decisions, an EU official said.

Separately, a European official said the bloc was looking at several options to boost its defence spending and security on a par in ambition with the EU’s Covid-19 response, when the bloc put together a fund of about €800 billion (S$1.12 trillion) to help member states’ economies recover from the pandemic.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the EU would take significant decisions in the coming months to face the scale of the challenge. BLOOMBERG