About 2 million artillery shells will be produced in the EU in 2025, the newly appointed European Commissioner for Defense and Space, Andrius Kubilius, told Hromadske.
Answering a question about whether Europe has enough production capacity to increase military aid to Ukraine, the official noted that only 20-25% of weapons are produced in the EU, and the rest are bought abroad. According to Kubilius, increasing arms production in the EU requires orders from European governments, which are lacking, and without long-term contracts with arms manufacturers, Europe should not be expected to produce more weapons and ammunition for Ukraine in the coming years.
“Money from the EU budget cannot be used to purchase weapons for Ukraine. There are a number of restrictions on investment in the defense industry outside the EU. However, money from the European Peace Fund or frozen Russian assets can be used to purchase weapons,” the European Commissioner said.
At the same time, Kubilius explains, next year Ukraine will receive about EUR 30 billion from the EU and will decide how much of this amount to use for defense purposes. The EU is currently implementing a new mechanism to integrate the Ukrainian military-industrial complex into the European defense industry.
The final communiqué of the EU summit held on December 18-19 emphasizes that the European Council “plans to intensify its efforts to further support and develop Ukraine’s defense industry and deepen its cooperation with the EU defense industry.”
At an informal meeting in Brussels, EU defense ministers agreed to fulfill their promise to supply 1 million artillery shells to Ukraine, Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said.
“We have just agreed with the EU defense ministers that we will fulfill our promise to supply 1 million artillery shells to Ukraine. By the end of March, we will have delivered more than 0.5 million shells. More than 1.1 million shells by the end of 2024. The EU’s production capacity will increase to 1.5 million by the end of 2024,” Pevkur wrote on social media site X.
Last spring, the EU countries jointly agreed to send one million shells to Ukraine by March 2024 to repel Russia’s military aggression.
