European Union leaders cannot reach a consensus on the reorganisation of the fund to help the Ukrainian government. Germany’s position remains the main obstacle. This was reported by the Financial Times (FT).
“Germany’s disagreement with the proposed changes to the operation of the EU military support fund could lead to a delay in arms deliveries to Ukraine,” the FT writes.
The newspaper recalls that the existing European Peace Facility needs additional funding to reimburse the EU’s expenses on arms deliveries to Ukraine. The volume of the fund was €12bn, the contribution of each country of the union was calculated depending on the size of its economy.
The fund is now down to €5.6bn due to EU states paying the cost of arms deliveries to Kiev. Germany and some other states are in favour of abandoning this compensation process.
The German authorities believe that the cost of the weapons that Germany itself supplies to Kiev should be covered from Germany’s share of the fund. This does not meet with the support of other, smaller EU countries, which believe that such an approach would drastically reduce the size of the fund.
The newspaper notes that countries with a large arms industry, which insist on changes, will benefit from it.
Earlier, the French ambassador to Kiev, Gael Vesierre, said in an interview with France Info TV channel that France was planning to change the form of military support for Ukraine.