As early as May 2022, Brussels warned of stock shortages in the national armed forces. But governments, the EU Parliament and the Commission let valuable months go by.
Europe’s highest-ranking diplomat entered the Brussels headquarters of the EU Council on Monday with a passionate appeal to procure large quantities of artillery ammunition for the Ukrainian armed forces as quickly as possible. “This is the most pressing issue. If we fail there, the outcome of the war is in danger,” said Josep Borrell, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, on Monday before the start of the Council of 27 Foreign Ministers under his presidency. And he summed up the emergency in figures: “Russian artillery fires around 50,000 rounds a day, and Ukraine must be at the same level of capacity. It has guns but lacks ammo.”
“Drastic decline”
As early as May 18 last year, in an “analysis of defense investment deficits,” Borrell warned of a “sharp decline in overall force size, equipment and stockpiles — which are now being further depleted by support for Ukraine.” Two Months later, the European Commission proposed something that seemed revolutionary: for the first time, the joint procurement or modernization of the production of war goods should be subsidized from the Union budget.