’EU is not doing its part’: Former Commander-in-Chief of Estonian Armed Forces Terras calls for increased military assistance to Ukraine
The European Union is not doing its part either in terms of military support for Ukraine or in terms of financing such assistance, either in terms of its quantity or speed of delivery, which must change.
This was stated in a commentary to Guildhall by a member of the European Parliament, former Commander-in-Chief of Estonia, Lieutenant General Riho Terras, Censor.NET reports.
‘This is absolutely unacceptable, we complain about the United States, about the delay in assistance to Ukraine on their part, but the European Union does not do its part, even in terms of funding (military assistance to Ukraine - Ed.). This is just absurd,’ the politician said.
‘For example, let's look at France, which makes loud statements about supporting Ukraine, says that this support will last as long as necessary, and at the same time provides 0.01% of its own GDP for such support to Ukraine. Again, this is simply absurd. Estonia proposed that each NATO member should allocate 0.25% of its GDP to help Ukrainians, but only a few countries supported this proposal,’ the MEP said.
‘Yes, we are working, but this is not enough, neither in terms of the speed of providing such military assistance nor in terms of its quantity. This must be changed,’ concluded Riho Terras.
A similar statement was made by the Lithuanian representative in the European Parliament, Petras Auštrevičius, who said that the EU countries were very late in providing military assistance to Ukraine because they were too slow in deploying the capacities of their military-industrial complex.
Earlier, the European Parliament called for arms purchases for Ukraine while investing in the EU's defence industry. Romanian MEP and member of the Committee on Foreign Relations Dragos Tudorache believes that the EU's approach to arming Ukraine should include two areas: allocating funds for the purchase of weapons on the world market and allocating funds for investments in increasing the production capacity of the EU military-industrial complex.
