The European Union is struggling to figure out a way to fill Ukraine’s immediate ammunition needs even though member states have already agreed politically to support Kyiv with additional shells.
(Bloomberg) — The European Union is struggling to figure out a way to fill Ukraine’s immediate ammunition needs even though member states have already agreed politically to support Kyiv with additional shells.
The EU is expected to sign off on a joint ammunition procurement plan for Ukraine as soon as next week, but it’s stalled on how to provide Kyiv with the 155mm shells it needs this year, according to people familiar with discussions taking place within the bloc.
Earlier this month, European defense ministers backed a proposal by the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell to use €1 billion ($1.1 billion) from the European Peace Facility to immediately supply Ukraine with ammunition from existing stockpiles. A further €1 billion could be used to jointly procure shells, while any additional funds would need to be agreed by member states, Borrell said.
But it isn’t yet clear what volumes are available from those stocks and whether they would be enough, one of the people said. There is also concern that the talks lack the required urgency.
Ukraine has said it will need 1 million rounds this year, and Estonia has estimated that would cost around €4 billion. The Baltic nation was the first member state to put the issue on the table a month ago, proposing to urgently fund the ramping up of production capacity in order to provide the required supplies this year.
Estonia said at the time that Ukraine was using on average between 60,000 and as many as 210,000 rounds of ammunition per month, but that the European defense industry only has the capacity to produce as many as 25,000 shells in that time frame. Meanwhile, Russia was firing around 20,000 to 60,000 shells a day.
EU member states have yet to indicate how much new money they are prepared to put up this year and how such funds would be structured, the person said. Some nations would like to see mandatory funding proportionate to the size of each state’s economy, while others want any contributions to be voluntary.
New funding is mostly a political decision for member states. That issue — along with agreeing the quantities of shells to source — is expected to come to the fore when EU foreign and defense ministers meet next week, ahead of a leaders’ summit in Brussels where the topic is also expected to be on the agenda.
There are also differences among member states over which vehicle is best placed to jointly procure ammunition, the people said.
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Some nations prefer Ukraine’s requirements addressed through a soon-to-be-launched procurement project led by the European Defense Agency to cover member state needs, ranging from small arms ammo up to 155mm shells. That idea traces part of Borrell’s proposal, which also looks at how EU states can boost their own stocks.
But others argue that Ukraine’s more immediate requirements would be more rapidly met through the European Peace Facility, the mechanism the EU is currently using to support weapons deliveries to Ukraine by reimbursing what member states send.
Another issue is whether joint procurement efforts should focus on European firms only or whether they should be open to non-EU suppliers. There are currently some 15 manufacturers of 155mm shells in the EU spread across 11 countries, and there isn’t yet a firm estimate by how much the industry could increase capacity over the next few months, one of the people said.
Member states are broadly in agreement with the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, taking on a greater role in ramping up industrial production capacity and removing bottlenecks in the supply chain, the people said. The EU’s internal market chief, Thierry Breton, said last week that the defense industry needs to move into an “economy of war mode.”
–With assistance from Natalia Ojewska and Lyubov Pronina.
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