By Lili Bayer and Charlotte Van Campenhout
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas urged EU leaders on Thursday to pledge 5 billion euros ($5.4 billion) for artillery shells for Ukraine to strengthen its hand in peace talks, amid divergences over how to bolster Kyiv and the EU’s own military capabilities.
Arriving at an EU summit in Brussels, Kallas called on leaders to match words of support for Kyiv with deeds, as U.S. President Donald Trump pushes ahead with his efforts to end the war, including through a rapprochement with Russia.
Kallas has scaled back a proposal to pledge up to 40 billion euros in military aid to Ukraine this year, with each country contributing according to its economic size, after resistance from some countries, particularly in southern Europe.
She told reporters she was now focusing on what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy – who was to address the summit by video link – says he needs most urgently, such as 2 million artillery shells at a cost of 5 billion euros.
“We should at least start to have a really concrete step – not only words, but also in deeds that we are helping Ukraine right now. Because the stronger they are on the battlefield, the stronger they are behind the negotiation table,” Kallas said.
Bolstering the EU’s own defences also features on the summit agenda, reflecting deep fears that Moscow may attack an EU member in the coming years and doubts about the future of U.S. protection for Europe via the NATO defence alliance.
Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda reiterated his support to Kyiv on Thursday, saying “Ukraine needs our military assistance, Ukraine needs long-range missiles and we are ready to provide it. We should increase the pressure on Russia.”
“We have to rearm ourselves because otherwise we will be the next victims of Russian aggression,” he added.
But some southern European capitals have been more reticent reflecting a division between those geographically closer to Russia that have given more aid to Ukraine and those further away that have given less, as a share of their economies.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he did not like the term “rearm”, which the European Commission has used extensively in its push for more defence spending.
“It is important to take into account that the challenges that we face in the southern neighbourhood are a bit different to the ones that eastern flank face,” he said.
DEFENCE SPENDING
EU leaders will debate the Commission’s defence proposals, which include a call for European countries to pool resources on joint military projects and buy more European arms.
As they arrived at the summit, some said they wanted the EU to go further in financing defence spending.
“This should not just be a question of loans, as is currently the case,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said. “I think we also need to seriously discuss the possibility of a … joint borrowing facility that will also offer grants to member states in order to make defence investment decisions”.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed a similar preference for “truly common European instruments that do not directly burden the debt of states” in a meeting with European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen, Meloni’s office said in a statement.
Others, like Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said they would not block the defence spending plan but were still very much opposed to joint euro bonds.
All leaders, except Hungary’s Viktor Orban, are expected to re-affirm support to Ukraine at the summit.
According to his spokesman, Orban described the European Union as a “toothless lion.”
“The United States has power. The EU has none,” his spokesman quoted him as saying
EU leaders will also commit to do more to make the bloc more competitive in the face of U.S. tariffs and other economic challenges. There is broad consensus on the goals, but discord on key details.
($1 = 0.9223 euros)
(Additional reporting by Philip Blenkinsop, Julia Payne, Andrew Gray, Jan Strupczewski, Benoit Van Overstraeten, Thomas Escritt, Tiffany Vermeylen, Krisztina Than, Francesca Piscioneri; Writing by Ingrid Melander and Philip Blenkinsop;Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
