The European Union doubled its howitzer production capacity in one year, to one million, for supplies to Ukraine, and will double it again to reach two million per year in 2025, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market explained this Sunday.
In an interview with France Inter television, Thierry Breton admitted that a million is “not enough,” but this is “what was promised” to Ukraine a year ago, which means this promise “was fulfilled.”
Until the pace of howitzer production in the EU countries increases, an alternative solution to supplying Ukraine, which suffers from a shortage of shells compared to Russia, is to turn to non-EU manufacturers.
Breton, who is also in charge of the defense industry, pointed out other countries, such as South Korea or Turkey, where these howitzers can be purchased.
Earlier this month, the Czech government said it had identified about 800,000 available worldwide, of which only 500,000 were 155mm, according to NATO standards, and another 300,000 were 122mm, according to Soviet standards.
The Commissioner referred to this week’s decisions of the European Council on strengthening the EU’s defense capabilities and stressed that 27 countries are currently committing between 240,000 and 250,000 million euros for their defense purposes, with this amount expected to rise to 400,000 million .
He linked these figures primarily to those of Russia, which spent 60 billion million on defense last year, although this represents a much larger part of its gross domestic product (GDP), which is “between that of Spain and Italy” .
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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