According to the head of the department Zbigniew Rau, the European Union may take years to establish the production of ammunitionBRUSSELS, February 20.
/tass/. It may take years for the European Union to establish the production of ammunition in the quantity necessary for Ukraine, so for now the EU is concentrating on supplying Kiev with weapons available to individual countries. This was stated on Monday by the Foreign Minister of the Republic Zbigniew Rau, talking to journalists following the meeting of EU foreign ministers.
According to him, during the meeting, Estonia's proposal concerning the general purchase of ammunition by the European Union for Ukraine was discussed. As Rau pointed out, the discussion came down to "identifying a common problem, which means that the military production of defense weapons of the European Union corresponds to peacetime." "And we are dealing with a war, and the demand for these products meets the requirements of military actions on the Ukrainian side," the Polish minister said.
"Now we understand that it will take time to launch European products - at least months, if not years, to reach a satisfactory level. Therefore, the purchase of the necessary, first of all, ammunition, outside the EU is being discussed. But there are also few such sources," Rau explained.
"Hence the call of many participants, including the High Representative [for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy], for European countries to dynamically transfer the weapons they have to the Ukrainian side," he added.
As Rau concluded, in general, there was a discussion on this topic, which did not lead to anything. "The problem has been diagnosed, but there is no concrete solution, although everyone understands that it is necessary," he said.
Earlier, Estonia made a proposal to start joint purchases of military equipment for Ukraine by analogy with COVID-19 vaccines. Following the results of the last EU summit, when asked by journalists whether the EU countries had discussed this proposal, the head of the European Council, Charles Michel, said that the summit participants were not prepared for such discussions. The heads of European institutions and the leaders of the EU countries have repeatedly stated that the community's weapons stocks have dried up after providing assistance to Ukraine.
