An attempt by European Union leaders to allocate €5 billion for ammunition for Ukraine was blocked by Italy and France.
Bloomberg writes about this, citing European diplomats.
According to them, it is these countries that are delaying decisions on specific financial amounts of assistance. All because France and Italy believe that the initiative is not yet sufficiently developed and are asking for more technical and financial details.
French diplomats noted that while they share the goals of this initiative, the priority is to implement the EUʼs share of €18 billion of the G7 credit package for Ukraine.
Bloomberg sources note that France and Italy are the two largest economies in the EU after Germany. They do not want to publicly state how much money they are willing to allocate to help Ukraine, especially if the amounts are very large.
"If we canʼt make a decision for the whole year, letʼs at least decide in the short term," EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas told reporters, calling the contribution "realistic".
In contrast to Italy and France, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo supported the €5 billion initiative for ammunition for Ukraine. According to him, many countries are "not acting properly" in the context of arms to Ukrainians.
Meanwhile, others criticized the idea for starting early to determine how much aid should be provided to countries, instead of first getting their consent. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said that such determination of aid amounts was “a move in the opposite direction”.
"This may create the impression that someone is not doing enough. But there is a willingness to support Ukraine, even if it is difficult to determine exactly right now," Nauseda told reporters.
- At the European Council summit in Brussels on March 20, Volodymyr Zelensky asked EU leaders to urgently provide Ukraine with €5 billion for artillery shells. This idea was also put forward by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas.
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