After weeks of preparations and repeated assurances that the EU was close to approving its ambitious €40 billion military aid package for Ukraine, Brussels suddenly walked back on the plan. At the last minute, it was removed from the EU Council’s agenda, just as EU leaders gathered for yet another summit on Thursday, March 20th.
The ‘Kallas plan,’ named after the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, envisioned doubling the EU’s military aid to an ambitious €40 billion in 2025. This included buying two million artillery rounds for €5 billion, followed by air defense systems, missiles, drones, fighter jets, and other lethal and non-lethal equipment for up to €35 billion to be delivered by the end of the year.
As we reported a few days ago, Kallas claimed that there was “broad political support” among member states for the plan following a foreign ministerial meeting on Monday. She said that only some of the technical details regarding calculating individual contributions were left to be finalized.
Specifically, large southern European countries opposed Kallas’ proposal that each member state should contribute “their fair share” relative to GDP. They asked Brussels to find other ways, possibly by incorporating the remaining profits generated by Russia’s frozen assets.
Three days later, it turns out that the disagreements about financing the plan ran deeper than Kallas would have let us believe. On Wednesday, it was reported that the Kallas plan had been delayed and removed from the summit’s agenda after strong resistance and the threat of vetoes from half a dozen member states, including some of the biggest EU countries who usually boast about their unconditional support for Ukraine.
Instead, the latest version of the plan will focus solely on delivering the two million artillery rounds this year, which in itself could prove tricky, given that the EU failed spectacularly on its previous pledge of delivering half of that amount in 2023.
According to media reports, France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal oppose the €40 billion figure, along with the pro-peace Central European countries Hungary and Slovakia, who previously said they would not veto the scheme as long as they are allowed not to participate in it.
France, Italy, and Spain—boasting the largest European economies after Germany—all gave economic and budgetary reasons for not backing the plan this time. They also called for caution against military escalation and suggested it would be a good idea to see how the ongoing U.S.-led peace process turns out.
This last point may be the most important, as the last-minute decision to pull out from the Kallas plan was made just after U.S. President Trump finished his phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky, after which Washington expressed optimism about reaching a ceasefire agreement in the coming weeks.
It seems EU countries are starting to realize that prolonging the war with endless weapon deliveries may not be the best way forward and that, despite all their criticism, Trump’s diplomatic approach is delivering better than they had expected. The next step would be to drop the virtue signaling and start working with the U.S. to reach peace as soon as possible, but that may be a big ask from a Brussels that prefers to deny reality.
