European Union countries agreed on Wednesday to speed up the delivery of artillery shells and buy more ammunition to help Ukraine, but have yet to decide how to turn those plans into reality.
The head of diplomacy of the European Union, Josep Borrell, announced the agreement at the meeting of the defense ministers of the EU countries in Stockholm, writes "Evropeyska Pravda" with reference to the Reuters agency.
According to the plan developed by Borrell, EU countries will receive financial incentives in the amount of 1 billion euros to send more artillery shells to Ukraine, and another 1 billion euros will go to the joint purchase of new shells.
"We have reached a common agreement on this procedure, but there are issues that have not yet been resolved. Everything must be discussed in detail," Borrell said after the ministers' meeting in Stockholm.
Borrell expressed hope that the plan will be finally agreed upon at the meeting of EU foreign affairs and defense ministers on March 20.
Ukraine's Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, who was also present in Stockholm, called on ministers to support an Estonian plan for EU countries to join forces to buy 1 million 155mm rounds this year at a cost of 4 billion euros.
Borel's plan is smaller in scale, but it will still be a landmark step for the EU, since defense procurement has mostly been the prerogative of individual governments of EU member states.
EU officials say if the bloc places a large order on behalf of member governments, they will get a better price and give arms companies a strong incentive to invest in increased production capacity.
However, officials say there is still a lot of work to be done to agree on details such as funding and an initiative to strike deals with arms companies.
According to officials, Ukraine is using up shells faster than its allies can produce them, prompting a renewed search for ammunition and ways to ramp up production.
Reznikov said that Ukraine needs 90,000 to 100,000 artillery shells per month. But the ministers and officials of the EU could not say to what extent the European defense industry is able to provide Ukraine with the shells it needs.
Estonia has previously called on the EU to focus on procuring ammunition for Ukraine as soon as possible to start industrial production instead of sending existing stocks.
