Lithuania – Not only Lithuania but other small countries within the European Union would have trouble in continuing to support Ukraine without continued assistance from the bloc.
This is according to an interview with Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis that was conducted by POLITICO.
The EU is hoping to send funds to support Ukraine’s acquisition of weapons and ammunition in the amount of 20 billion euros to be distributed over four years. The funds are to be taken from the European Peace Facility (EPF), which is an instrument for financing the common costs of the EU’s military operations and missions, including support for its partners. Since February 2022 it has primarily been used to send funds for Ukraine’s defense.
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary has been threatening to veto any attempt to send more funds to Ukraine at the upcoming summit on December 14-15, however, and is showing no sign of backing down.
Contingency plans are currently being investigated for the likely event that Hungary maintains its opposition, such as by having EU member states provide funds for Ukraine out of their own budgets. But Lithuania is concerned that such a move will force smaller countries such as theirs to reduce the amount of aid they provide. „The problem is, if EPF is no longer continued . . . small countries like mine, we would be less able to assist Ukraine with the resources that we have,” Landsbergis told POLITICO.
While any funds Lithuania would send to support Ukraine would eventually be reimbursed by the EU, Landsbergis said that the situation “puts us in the very end of a very long line, and that actually is against the interests of any European industry.” He compared the dilemma over funding to the situation with the vaccines during the COVID pandemic, when the bloc worked together to ensure equal access. “If the big guys were purchasing what they needed then we were just waiting for our turn — and we might be still waiting for the vaccines to arrive,” he warned.
And even though Hungary was the first to voice objections to the EPF, other member states are beginning to express their own doubt about the wisdom of continuing to pour yet more funds into a conflict that seems to be locked in a stalemate.
Landsbergis proposes that the EPF could be adapted in order to address the concerns of skeptical member states, suggesting that the conditions under which Ukraine is to receive additional funds should perhaps be rendered more transparent.