The European Union has decided to conduct an audit on arms deliveries. Brussels believes that not all EU countries have supplied Ukraine with as much as they could.
The inspection is being carried out by the European External Action Service, the EU’s diplomatic agency, the Financial Times reported, citing three diplomats.
According to the newspaper’s sources, the EEAS collects data by sending queries to EU countries, but not all are willing to provide complete information.
The agency plans to present the results of its analyzes to state leaders at the summit on February 1, where the issue of allocating 50 billion euros in economic aid to Ukraine in the coming years will also be discussed again.
In private conversations, some senior officials in Brussels express their dissatisfaction with the amount of military aid from a number of EU countries – writes ‘FT’.
Weapons for Ukraine. The EU checks which countries have provided military aid
According to estimates by the Institute for the World Economy in Kiel, Germany provided military aid to Ukraine worth 17.1 billion euros as of October 31, 2023. The next places are occupied by Denmark (3.5 billion euros), Poland (3.04 billion euros), the Netherlands (2.48 billion euros) and Sweden (2.1 billion euros).
Although countries’ financial capabilities differ due to the size of their budgets and economies (in terms of share of GDP, Lithuania and Estonia are the leaders in providing aid to Kiev), some leading EU countries lag far behind.
For example, Italy, the EU’s third largest economy, supplied weapons worth just €0.7 billion, while France, in second place, provided military aid worth only €0.5 billion.
Some countries, especially Eastern Europe, are also calling for an increase in the size of the European Peace Facility (EPF), which partly finances arms supplies to Ukraine. An EU diplomat said that without this fund, “some countries will not provide any military assistance.”
Source: Do Rzeczy
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
