The Chairman of the European Parliament is preparing a message for EU countries regarding Ukraine.
will deliver a message to EU leaders at the summit in Prague on Friday that the EU should put tanks in Ukraine and speed up the country's accession to the bloc.
“Ukrainians need weapons that they can fight to get their territory back, and that means, for example, Leopard II tanks, which several member states have,” Metzola said in an interview during the plenary session of the Parliament in Strasbourg.
Germany, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and non-EU countries Norway, Switzerland and Turkey have a total of about 2,000 tanks, according to an EU official.
Metzola, who was the first head of an EU institution to visit Kyiv back in April, said that countries willing to provide tanks would receive compensation from the EU fund, the European Peace Facility, which has allocated 2.5 billion euros ($2.5 billion) to Ukraine ) on military procurement.
“I think we need to have these discussions now, especially as we see the escalation of Russia, but also on the other hand, as we see Ukraine successfully pushing out the Russians.” , – she said.
Several EU countries are concerned that large donations from their arsenals could jeopardize their own national defense potential.
Read also: The last six months have demonstrated that Ukraine can effectively implement the European integration agenda even in war conditions — Stefanishyna
However, Metzola says that the supply of Leopard tanks “will not significantly affect” the overall readiness of individual countries. The Speaker of the Parliament also repeated her call to Ukraine to speed up its accession to the European Union. According to her, Ukraine has demonstrated its intention and readiness to join by achieving goals that would take other countries months or years to achieve.
Friday's EU summit in Prague will be preceded by a broader summit on Thursday dedicated to the opening of the “European political community” with Ukraine, Moldova, Albania and North Macedonia among the 44 represented countries.
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