Delivery is lower
EU ammunition plan for Ukraine has failed
January 31, 2024, 4:09 p.m
The European Union actually wanted to provide Ukraine with one million rounds of artillery ammunition by March. But nothing comes of it. Foreign representative Borrell now admits that the EU needs significantly more time.
The EU has admitted that its ambitious plans to supply Ukraine with artillery shells have failed. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on the sidelines of a meeting of defense ministers in Brussels that only a little more than half of the promised quantity of one million shots will probably have been delivered by March. The new goal is now to reach the one million mark at least by the end of this year. According to Borrell, member states have pledged to deliver around 630,000 more bullets between March and then. Then there will be more than a million.
On March 20 last year, the EU states promised Ukraine that they would provide one million new artillery shells for the defensive war against Russia within twelve months. They should be organized from the stocks of the member states, but also through new joint procurement projects and prevent shortages of the Ukrainian armed forces.
Pistorius predicted failure
According to the latest figures from the EU Foreign Service, only around 330,000 of the promised artillery shells have been delivered so far. Another 200,000 or so are expected to follow within the 12-month period. Then we will probably have achieved a little more than 52 percent of the goal, said Borrell.
Federal Defense Minister Boris Pistorius had already predicted that the ambitious plans would fail last year. “One million will not be reached. One has to assume that,” said the SPD politician in November. He cited insufficient production capacity as the reason.
However, politicians from countries like Estonia and Borrell also repeatedly gave other reasons. Borrell emphasized several times that, in his opinion, the problem was not industrial capacity and pointed out that significant quantities of ammunition produced in the EU were delivered to other countries due to existing contracts. The Estonian government, among others, therefore suggested conducting negotiations with these buyer countries or buying ammunition from third countries.
21 billion euros in bilateral arms aid
For the current year, the EU states have so far pledged a total of 21 billion euros in bilateral arms aid to Ukraine, as Borrell announced. According to him, the EU also wants to train an additional 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers, bringing the total number to 60,000. By setting up the bilateral arms assistance, the foreign representative responded to a request from the federal government, which had requested an overview. Germany has promised Kiev a good seven billion euros for this year, i.e. around a third of the bilateral military aid. According to previous information from Berlin, this is the best in the EU.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz had urged partners to increase national military aid: “We must strengthen our resolve and redouble our efforts to ensure that we maintain our support for as long as necessary,” said a guest article by the Chancellor in the ” Financial Times”. In addition to Scholz, the heads of government of Denmark, Estonia, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic also signed.
A special summit on economic aid for Ukraine will take place in Brussels on Thursday. This is about a joint aid package worth 50 billion euros over four years. Hungary blocked the funds in December. The member states are now hoping that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will give in.