Source: NATO
Good morning.
I’m looking forward to meeting the EU Defence Ministers and to discuss our support for Ukraine. Since day one of this war, NATO and the European Union have worked very closely together to provide unprecedented military, economic, and financial support to Ukraine. And therefore, it’s always useful to sit down with the ministers and discuss how to sustain our support and step up what we do.
The most urgent need now is more air defence. And we are working with NATO Allies, and many of them also of course EU members, on stepping up the delivery of ammunition, air defence systems, and in particular the most advanced ones, the Patriot systems.
So, we have seen some progress. But more progress and more air defence systems are urgently needed in Ukraine. And this is also the message from the NATO-Ukraine Council, which is meeting at NATO today.
Then, at NATO, we are now working on how NATO can coordinate the provision of equipment and training. We have received a proposal from our Supreme Allied Commander, SACEUR, on how to organise this. So, NATO coordinates the support of military equipment and training to Ukraine.
I have also proposed a multi-year financial pledge, meaning that we should agree as NATO Allies, a financial pledge to Ukraine over several years to ensure that we prevent gaps and delays as we have seen recently, and that Ukraine get predictable, accountable support for the long haul. And that’s what they need to prevail as a sovereign independent nation.
Lastly, we are also working with industry to ramp up production. We have seen some important decisions lately on more investments, more production. But we need more and we are working closely with the transatlantic defence industrial base to ramp up production. Then I’m ready for questions.