EU proposes €40 billion military fund for Ukraine, bypassing Hungary’s veto

Euractiv reported this, according to European Pravda.

Last month, the EU's diplomatic service proposed creating a scheme at the EU level to provide Ukraine with additional ammunition. The text, which was reviewed by the publication, did not contain any figures on the amount of money needed to implement these plans. 

Given Hungary's continued refusal to support Ukraine, the proposal was rewritten to include “participating Member States.”

The latest version of the proposal states that countries are “encouraged to provide military support to Ukraine in 2025 for a preliminary amount of at least 20 billion euros, which could increase to 40 billion euros depending on Ukraine's needs.”

As a first step, the leaders of the participating countries should agree to allocate 5 billion euros for 2 million large-caliber artillery munitions in 2025, the text suggests.

Each country will participate according to its economic weight, either in cash or in kind. The EU itself will count 1.9 billion euros from the proceeds of frozen Russian assets as its contribution, even though these funds have already been allocated and partially disbursed. 

The priorities of the initiative should include large-caliber artillery ammunition, air defense systems, missiles, drones, fighters, etc.

The text was handed over to the EU countries on Thursday, ahead of a meeting of foreign ministers to be held on Monday. 

• Christophe Lemond, spokesperson for the French Foreign Ministry, stated that one of the issues raised during the special EU summit in Brussels was the transfer of intelligence data to Ukraine.