A European Union plan to spend up to twenty billion euros on military aid for Ukraine has been met with resistance from a number of EU countries.
“A European Union proposal to spend some €20 billion on lethal aid for Ukraine is facing push-back from several bloc members and is unlikely to survive in its current form, several diplomats have told Reuters, noting that Germany is among those questioning the funding plan.
While the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has pushed for the four-year spending initiative since July, several member states are not yet sold on the idea, and are reluctant to commit such significant funding so far in advance, the diplomatic staffers said.
‘Germany has had a lot of questions... and rightfully so. We're talking about a lot of money’, a senior European diplomat told the outlet on Friday. ‘I'm not going to declare it dead at this point yet. But of course, improvements can always be made’.
EU defense ministers are set to discuss the funding plan during a meeting in Brussels next week, as the bloc also debates a separate proposal to provide around €50 billion in economic assistance to Kiev.
Some member states have also voiced opposition to the financial aid, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban blocking the package in a vote last month. The proposal ‘had not been worked out properly, and was not suitable to be a basis for serious negotiations, so we rejected it’, the prime minister said.
The security assistance could face similar resistance, with another EU diplomat telling Reuters that for ‘some member states, there is the reality of the public finances’. Citing a third official, the outlet added that ‘the likelihood of Borrell's original proposal being adopted was declining’, but noted ‘many countries’ still supported the move.
The EU has authorized a total of €83 billion in military, economic and humanitarian aid to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s military operation in February of 2022, according to the European Commission. Despite the Western largesse, however, Kiev’s summer counteroffensive failed to meet its objectives, with the Russian Defense Ministry estimating that Kiev had lost more than 90,000 troops, as well as over 55 tanks and 1,900 armored vehicles, just since June”. -RT
Although the European Commission has proposed providing Kiev with further grants and loans to assist in its conflict against Moscow, the cost of the political and fiscal damage to the EU incurred from Brussels’ handling of the Russo-Ukrainian war may prove to be even more difficult to recoup.
Furthermore. it certainly doesn’t appear that the countries of the EU are overly zealous to take up the Ukraine baton from the United States as America ventures further into the Middle East.