Iran Press/ Europe: The EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell said on Sunday (19 February) he supported an Estonian proposal for the European Union to buy ammunition on behalf of its member states to provide more military support to Ukraine.
“I completely agree with the Estonian prime minister’s [Kaja Kallas] proposal,” Borrell told the Munich Security Conference, speaking alongside the Estonian leader.
“We are working on that and it will work,” Borrell said, warning that Ukraine’s shortage of ammunition has to be solved quickly, “in a matter of weeks”.
After an EU summit earlier this month, Kallas recommended that the EU should pool resources in a bid to accelerate ammunition production and deliveries to Ukraine, in a mechanism akin to the one used during the COVID-19 pandemic to jointly acquire vaccines.
EU foreign ministers are expected to discuss the idea of joint procurement of 155mm artillery shells at their regular meeting in Brussels on Monday (20 February).
EU officials and diplomats say such an approach would be more efficient than member states placing orders individually. 219
