MEPs refuse discharge of EU Council budget until Ukraine receives 7 more Patriot systems

Former Belgian Prime Minister and now MEP Guy Verhofstadt of the Renew faction shared the information. He posted a video of his speech on social network X.

"I have in fact a point of order to ask you to change the agenda of today. I have to tell you that today that I am that sick of what is happening in Ukraine. As you all have seen, the last 20 days there are these numerous attacks by the Russians on ordinary cities of Ukraine: hospitals, power installations, apartment blocks. What I find scandalous is that Europe, with opening the door for Ukraine, the European Council is not even capable in such an urgency to decide to send a number of anti-missile systems to Ukraine," Verhofstadt said. 

He emphasized that there are 100 Patriot air defense systems in Europe, and the Europeans cannot provide only seven, as requested by Ukraine. In view of this, the MEP proposed to remove the approval of the European Council budget from the agenda until the member states provide Ukraine with seven Patriot systems. 

"The European Parliament has suspended the decision on financing the EU Council for failing to deliver Patriot systems to Ukraine," MEP and former Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius wrote later.

The decision was reportedly supported by 515 MEPs, while 62 others voted against it. 

• On April 4 in Brussels, Ukraine's Foreign Minister said that Germany had initiated a search for affordable Patriot air defense systems for Kyiv. His German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock, called for an urgent search for air defense systems for Ukraine in third countries, as "Germany's Patriot stocks are depleted."
• Later, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba said that Ukraine has found over 100 available Patriots in the world and is seeking to obtain at least 7 such systems as soon as possible to protect the cities that suffer the most from Russian attacks.