Nearly a year after promising to supply Ukraine with one million artillery shells, the European Union (EU) has admitted it has failed and is racing against time to increase production and supplies that trail Russia’s.
“We must (…) turn to large-scale weapons production,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Monday as an “urgent necessity,” just days before marking the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Scholz was speaking at the opening ceremony of weapons manufacturer Rheinmetall’s new plant at the country’s largest defense industrial complex in Unteluss in northern Germany. The new division is expected to produce 155mm artillery ammunition from 2025, gradually reaching a capacity of 200,000 rounds per year.
According to Scholz, this is a “call” for Europeans to strengthen the continent’s defense industrial base.
In early March 2023, EU defense ministers met in Stockholm to find a way to ensure there would be no ammunition shortages for Ukraine, which does not have access to enough 155mm rounds to use in the fight against the Russian occupier.
Estonia was the first country to name the figure and cost: one million artillery ammunition and four billion euros for their production and purchase.
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell initially rejected the idea and said member states needed to be “realistic and pragmatic.”
“Money does not fall from the sky, and just because a member state says we should have more money does not mean that the money will appear as if by miracle. We have the resources that we have and the first thing we have to do is use them,” he maintained heights.
But the member states began to work on the Tallinn proposal, and two weeks later, on March 20, 2023, Josep Borrell made a statement: “This is a historic decision! As part of my proposal, member states agreed to supply one million artillery shells in the next 12 months.”
Between joint procurement among EU member states and increased production in its own defense industry, the EU has outlined a plan for continued military support for Ukraine.
Initially, it was about two billion euros, and, in addition to its own production and joint purchases, the goal was to deliver one million 155-mm shells to Ukraine by the end of March 2024.
Zelensky thanked him, and three days later, EU presidents and prime ministers rubber-stamped the agreement during a European Council meeting in Brussels.
Exactly two months later, Portuguese Defense Minister Helena Carreiras said that the EU had already achieved a quarter of the target: “At this meeting we made sure that 25% of the million 155mm ammunition has already been received, that is, it is making efforts to deliver ammunition to Ukraine.”
Josep Borrell later confirmed the statement of a Portuguese government official and announced that 25% of the target had already been achieved.
Over the next months, the public bloc mobilized to speed up production and joint procurement of ammunition, and expanded ways to support Ukraine.
Agreement on the Ammunition Support Act (ASAP) was reached in June, the European Peace Support Mechanism was strengthened and the program’s financial ceiling increased to €3.5 billion.
European institutions urgently discussed mechanisms to strengthen the European defense industry, but there were no further updates on the amount of ammunition purchased or produced for Ukraine.
On October 26, 2023, Bloomberg reported that the EU had only managed to fulfill 30% of its promise up to that date, meaning it had only received another 5% of the ammunition it already had in May.
The next day, a European Commission spokesman assured reporters that the target was still the end of March 2024, and on November 29, Portuguese Foreign Minister João Gomes Cravinho announced an “acceleration process” for the acquisition of artillery ammunition. this would compensate for the delay in the delivery of one million shells.
Two months later, on January 22, 2024, João Gomes Cravinho admitted that the EU would not reach its target: “It seems clear that the million that was talked about will not be achieved.”
Having failed to fulfill the promise, the European Union hastened to set another deadline: one million ammunition by the end of 2024, including taking into account the ammunition already produced that was included in the original promise.
The latest data dates back to February 6, when European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament that half had already been secured: “The European defense industry has increased production capacity by 40%. By the end of next month we will have delivered more than half a million artillery ammunition. And more than a million by the end of the year.”
However, Josep Borrell believed on January 31 that the EU was making up for its losses and there was a “huge imbalance” between what it managed to give to Ukraine and the ammunition that Russia receives, for example, from South Korea. North.
And he even asked to prioritize the supply of ammunition to Ukraine, to the detriment of other countries with which 27 have signed protocols.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal

I’m Tifany Hawkins, a professional journalist with years of experience in news reporting. I currently work for a prominent news website and write articles for 24NewsReporters as an author. My primary focus is on economy-related stories, though I am also experienced in several other areas of journalism.