Under the plan, which will be presented by the European Commission on Wednesday, the EU will grant subsidies to European arms companies for investments that increase the production of ammunition and missiles.
“In terms of defence, our industry must switch to war economy mode”, commented the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton.
For the plan to become a reality, it must be approved by EU governments and the European Parliament.
This program is the third part of an EU initiative to provide Ukraine with more ammunition and weapons, in particular 155mm artillery shells. Kyiv demands the supply of such weapons, because the fight against the Russian invasion has turned into a war of attrition.
As part of efforts to supply Ukraine with 1 million cartridges over 12 months, the EU has already agreed to allocate 1 billion euros ($1.10 billion) for ammunition and missiles that member countries will ship to Ukraine from stock.
The EU has allocated an additional €1 billion for joint purchases of such munitions – although this part of the plan is being delayed by disputes over how much should be produced in Europe.
The final element of the ammunition program aims to encourage arms companies to increase production. It provides for the allocation of 500 million euros from the EU budget to partly finance projects to increase production capacity. The plan will also allow EU regional development funds, known as solidarity funds, as well as coronavirus pandemic recovery funds, to be used for such projects.
Breton said the EU has a large industrial base for the production of ammunition, but “today it does not have such a scale to meet the security needs of Ukraine and our member states” .
“We can and must revive it to adapt it to the needs of high-intensity conflict,” Breton said.
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