France is allegedly blocking an EU decision to finance the supply of ammunition to Ukraine, which requires unanimity among member states.
Source: Polish news agency PAP citing a senior EU official
The decision to finance the supply of ammunition to Ukraine by the European Union was made at the EU summit in March. The €2 billion needed for this purpose are to be provided from the European Peace Facility.
The political agreement reached at the summit, however, has yet to be turned into a legally binding document. Discussions regarding this case are still ongoing.
Of the €2 billion, half is to be used to reimburse supplies of ammunition from member states’ warehouses. Currently, however, there are not enough missiles in these warehouses, which is why the idea of purchasing them from outside the EU has emerged.
"However, this was opposed by France. In this situation, the solution would be to procure ammunition from a third country on a donated basis, and then recover it from the warehouses of a member state by transferring other weapons to the third country. Talks are underway on this matter," an EU source told PAP.
A bigger problem is with the second billion euros, which is to be allocated for joint orders from European industry, i.e. de facto in Poland, France and Germany.
"The French blocked the EU decision on the second billion euros before Christmas. The draft contained a provision that the ammunition was to be reimbursed only on the basis of requests submitted by Ukraine. Paris, however, wants, without explaining why, this provision to be deleted. This would also mean the possibility of refunding ammunition which the Ukrainian side has not asked for. In addition to the decision on ammunition, France wants to add the possibility of compensating for missile deliveries," a senior EU source told PAP.
In the opinion of some diplomats, lobbying by defence companies may be behind France’s decision.
Most EU countries protested against such changes, including Poland.
Poland’s Permanent Representative to the EU, Andrzej Sadoś, pointed out at the ambassadors’ meeting in Brussels that the EU must not waste time and must provide Ukraine with ammunition supplies as soon as possible. Poland also expressed disappointment that the EU could not reach an agreement and indicated that it would be difficult to explain this to Ukrainian partners.
Talks on the matter are expected to resume on Wednesday.
Background: On 20 March, the Council of the European Union approved a plan to supply Ukraine with 1 million artillery shells within 12 months.
Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron!
hop208 on April 12nd, 2023 at 20:19 UTC »
If I give France the benefit of the doubt, it’s because Macron sees the writing on the wall that a larger conflict is extremely likely and is trying to prevent France and the wider EU from being sucked into a conflict they are ill prepared for. Both the EU and even the US are not currently tooled to be able to replenish the ammunition as quickly as they are sending it to Ukraine.
If I don’t give France the benefit of the doubt; this appears to be France, looking out for France and France only… Contemporary history showing them to be contrarian and deeply resentful of US and by extension Anglo outsized influence in European affairs. Viewing Eastern Europe to be a buffer region between Western Europe and Russia, and nothing more.
green_flash on April 12nd, 2023 at 19:11 UTC »
France is blocking for two reasons:
a) France is opposing the idea of purchasing missiles from outside the EU to provide ammunition to Ukraine. b) France wants a provision that ammunition should be reimbursed only based on requests submitted by Ukraine to be deleted.
The reason for France's decision is not clear, but some diplomats speculate that lobbying by defence companies may be behind it.
Tiamatium on April 12nd, 2023 at 18:30 UTC »
This whole situation is more nuanced than Reddit would like it to be. Reddit would love there to be stockpiles of ammunition we could buy and deliver to Ukraine, but the truth is there aren't, not enough. The amount of supplies EU countries have delivered are small compared to what is needed, for example, 20 000 ammunition shells from Germany are enough for 3-4 days (and US has supplied over a million shells, enough for 6 months), and producing more takes time.
Norway thinks it can produce over 200 000 shells by 2028, US thinks it can produce 1 million shells a year by 2025... Do you see the problem? France doesn't think the war will last this long, and it doesn't think there will be next war.
France is wrong.