European Peace Facility: Continued EU military assistance to Ukraine

Written by Bruno Bilquin.

Almost two years since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, EU military assistance under the European Peace Facility (EPF) is lagging. The special European Council meeting of 1 February 2024 invited the Council to agree by early March 2024 to amend the regulation establishing the EPF, in order to increase its financial ceiling.

Is the European Peace Facility entering a new phase?

In October 2023 and again in December, the High Representative/Vice-President of the Commission (HR/VP) Josep Borrell proposed to the Foreign Affairs Council an envelope under the EPF of €5 billion a year for the years 2024 to 2027 for military assistance to Ukraine. At the Foreign Affairs Council meeting of 22 January 2024, this evolved into a proposal for a single, non-repeatable €5 billion EPF top-up in order to establish a ‘Ukraine Assistance Fund‘ within the EPF, to encourage EU Member States to increase their military support for Ukraine. This support remains badly needed, as Ukraine is still suffering from ‘shell hunger’, despite EU efforts and those of the international artillery coalition led by France and the United States (US). EU military aid to Ukraine is all the more necessary given the potential outcome of the next US presidential elections and the current congressional funding crisis.

Between February 2022 and 1 February 2024, the US delivered US$44.2 billion in military assistance to Ukraine. On 4 February 2024, a bi-partisan deal in the Senate proposed a $118 billion draft package pairing strengthened security on the US–Mexico border with wartime aid for Israel and other US partners, with a $60 billion envelope for Ukraine. Top Republicans in the House immediately rejected the draft; it is still under discussion since the Senate on 11 February again supported it, through a procedural vote, and on 14 February, approved it.

During their 31 January 2024 informal meeting, EU defence ministers had discussed the way ahead for EU military support to Ukraine. In his press remarks upon arrival at that meeting, the HR/VP said:

It is obviously necessary to have a clear understanding of where we are with [the provision of] ammunition. Ministers have been asked to present exactly what they have done, what they are doing, what they plan to do, in order to have a clear understanding of what has to go all together to provide Ukraine with what it needs […]. Ukraine needs more ammunition. There is a big imbalance between the fire capacity from one side and the other, and this gap has to be filled.

Indeed, according to experts, the EU is not on track to hit the one million rounds of ammunition target decided by the Council on 20 March 2023 under a three-track approach: deliveries, joint procurement and ramping-up of ammunition production. ‘We … will try to solve the issues that some Member States want to be considered in the new stage of the EPF’, the HR/VP added, mentioning the need for the EPF to shift from funding the destocking of the previous existing material to supporting the production of the European defence industry. In his press remarks following the January 2024 informal meeting, the HR/VP said that he had reiterated the urgent need to agree on further military support for the short and long term, and that the Member States and the EU had shared the following aggregated data.

• Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine (24 February 2022), the EU and its Member States have provided and placed €28 billion worth of military equipment.
• Many Member States provided their budgeted commitments for bilateral military assistance to Ukraine, amounting to at least €21 billion for 2024. Member States have submitted partial reimbursement requests (reportedly based on a reimbursement rate of between 25 % and 45 %) from the EPF funds for their military deliveries to Ukraine.
• The target of 40 000 Ukrainian soldiers trained through the EU military assistance mission for Ukraine (EUMAM Ukraine) had almost been reached on 1 February 2024; Member States agreed to add 20 000 soldiers, which would raise the number of trained soldiers to 60 000 by the end of summer 2024. The EPF operations pillar funds the common costs of EUMAM, while the EPF assistance pillar finances the assistance measures for the Ukrainian army.
• From March 2023 to 1 February 2024, 330 000 ammunition rounds have been delivered, mainly from existing stocks, representing only one third of the objective of one million ammunitions a year agreed by the Council on 20 March 2023. The HR/VP said he expected an additional 200 000 ammunition rounds by March 2024 from destocking and individual and joint procurement, thus reaching 52 % of the set objective (or slightly more, as not all Member States have sent their data). Deliveries of artillery ammunitions and missiles before 31 May 2023 – the first track of the ammunition plan for Ukraine – or orders placed for these items before 30 September 2023 through joint procurements – the second track of the ammunition plan – may be partially reimbursed from the EPF to the Member States.
• The HR/VP expects further deliveries of 600 000 ammunition rounds from orders Member States are placing, so as to reach the initial objective of one million rounds of ammunition deliveries by the end of 2024. According to the HR/VP, the industry’s production capacity will continue to increase as orders are placed; production capacity has already increased by 40 % since February 2022 and will again increase by 40 % in 2024, from a production capacity of 1 million rounds a year on 1 February 2024, to 1.4 million by the end of the year.

The €5 billion Ukraine Assistance Fund within the EPF: A work in progress

Initially, the 2021-2027 multiannual financial framework (MFF) was the only point on the draft agenda of the special European Council meeting of 1 February 2024. EU leaders discussed the mid-term review of the 2021-2027 MFF, including support for Ukraine. This support consists mainly of the Ukraine Facility, a €50 billion fund, split between €17 billion in grants and €33 billion in loans, for 2024 to 2027, to help Ukraine’s recovery, reconstruction and modernisation towards EU accession. The European Council came to an agreement on the Ukraine Facility.

In his press remarks before the meeting, the HR/VP said he would urge EU leaders to increase military support for Ukraine, through the Ukraine Assistance Fund within the EPF. He also confirmed that ‘some Member States, Hungary for example’, had expressed their wish to no longer participate in the EPF, albeit without obstructing it. The leaders did not, however, reach an agreement on the Ukraine Assistance Fund. The European Council reviewed the Council’s work on military support for Ukraine under the EPF and the proposed rise in the facility’s overall financial ceiling and invited the Council to reach an agreement by early March 2024 to amend Council Decision (CFSP) 2021/509. The EPF ceiling, set at €12 billion in current prices, would receive a one-off top-up of €5 billion, based on the 22 January 2024 HR/VP proposal, which no longer includes a €5 billion ‘annual’ top-up for the four coming years, marking a drastic down-sizing of the HR/VP’s initial ambition. Decision 2021/509 establishing the EPF has already been amended twice for the first and second tracks of the ammunition plan.

The European Council also invited the Council to take into account ‘suggestions by the Member States’. This refers, inter alia, to Germany’s request for a detailed list of commitments from other Member States for military deliveries in 2024 and to reduce its own real contribution to the EPF comparatively. On 8 January 2024, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had pointed out that Germany was, after the US, the world’s second-biggest provider of military aid to Ukraine, committed to deliver weapons and military material worth over €7 billion in 2024 alone. He had called on the other EU Member States to step up their support for Ukraine, asking them to present, by 1 February (the day of the special European Council meeting), a detailed summary of their military deliveries to Ukraine.

Lastly, the European Council reiterated ‘the urgent need to accelerate the delivery of ammunition and missiles, notably in view of the commitment to provide Ukraine with one million rounds of artillery ammunition’ and called on Member States ‘to explore all options to meet Ukraine’s needs …, including continued stock donations, redirection of existing orders and the placing of the necessary new orders, which will contribute to increasing European industry’s production capacity’.

On 27 February, Members of the European Parliament are expected to vote on a report urging Member States to approve the HR/VP’s initial proposal for a €20 billion Ukraine assistance fund within the EPF, and to accelerate ammunition deliveries from their stocks to Ukraine through the EPF.

Read this ‘at a glance’ note on ‘European Peace Facility: Continued EU military assistance to Ukraine‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.