DAfter weeks of negotiations, the EU states have agreed on the terms of their arms aid to Ukraine. The European Peace Facility (EPF) – a special pot in addition to the budget – is to be retained and provided with a total of five billion euros. However, around half of the money is already reserved for reimbursement of previous deliveries. In addition, Germany, the largest payer, will most likely not pay in any money because bilateral arms aid can be counted towards the contributions.
The compromise that the EU ambassadors agreed on Wednesday evening falls far short of the original proposal by Foreign Affairs Representative Josep Borrell. Last summer, Borrell proposed providing the EPF with five billion euros for four years, i.e. twenty billion euros in total. Now only five billion euros are available for the entire period until the end of 2027. The federal government prevailed. Chancellor Olaf Scholz demanded that rapid bilateral deliveries have priority. Germany provides by far the largest arms aid.
Germany will probably not have to pay anything more
Berlin must contribute 1.25 billion euros to the EPF. However, it can deduct its national deliveries from this contribution – up to the agreed reimbursement amount of 43 percent. Berlin would therefore have to submit bills totaling 2.3 billion euros to Brussels. That shouldn't be a problem, 7.4 billion euros are planned for weapons aid in the 2024 budget alone; Of these, 5.5 billion are already contractually bound.
Although other countries have not yet announced that they want to follow this example, the deduction regulation is open to everyone. Berlin could even demand money from the facility that other countries pay in – as soon as it submits further bills. However, a much lower reimbursement rate should be set for this.
In addition, the EPF's previous funds have long since been used up – even if practical reimbursement continues to be blocked by Hungary. According to diplomats, almost half of the five billion euros has already been “blocked” in order to reimburse the accrued bills. The remaining amount available is to be used for the joint procurement of new military equipment for Kiev. France, Greece and Cyprus insisted that these goods should in principle be produced in the EU. In the end, a compromise was found, according to which purchases outside Europe are possible if European manufacturers cannot deliver on time. This could be applied, for example, to the Czech initiative to procure artillery ammunition.
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