“The opening of the process of supplying and purchasing to industries outside theEuropean Union would allow to deliver more quickly much needed supplies to Ukraine“. With these words, on the other side of the ocean, an official of the American government, speaking to‘Ansaexpresses the interest of Washington to return to the planEuropean Defense Agency (Eda) for the supply of one million ammunition to Kiev for 2 billion euros to be delivered in the next 12 months. Plan – for now reserved exclusively for European companies – which envisages, for those who join, having a community fund of 500 million euros available to co-finance up to a maximum of 60% weapon production (260 million come from the European Defense Fund and 240 million from the Edirpa Procurement Fund), new streamlined authorization procedures, and the possibility of also using part of the Pnrr and cohesion policy resources to contribute to the cause. And it was also established that purchases can be made even when the production chains are partly outside Europe. It will be (also?) for all these reasons that, as reported by the US official, there is interest Washington.
“AND impressive – note the unspecified source, always speaking toAnsa – the quickness with which it was achieved the EU agreement: our ultimate goal is to deliver as many materials to the Ukrainians in the shortest possible time and this is an important step”. But, he adds, “it is also crucial that the EU and the Nato work together to ensure the coordination of the activities of supplyingin order to reduce the risk of duplication“. There is no official confirmation of the interest shown by the source cited. What is certain is that the general secretary of the Nato, Jens Stoltenbergsummoned to Bruxelles on the occasion of the defense ministerial in mid-May, the representatives of the transatlantic (therefore also US) defense industries to look for possible synergies.
The goal of the plan Asap (the English acronym of ‘as soon as possible’ but, in this case, of ‘Act in support of ammunition production’) is the joint purchase of ammunition 155mm to help the Ukraine and beef up its defense industry to increase artillery weapons production capacity. Among the participating countries, after the final approval of the capitals e of the Eurochamber, there is also Italy, with the most advanced defense industries on the continent in terms of ammunition. Meanwhile on May 9 the European Parliament voted for the plan to get a “fast track” to its final approval, which is will be the analysis times of the parliamentary commissions have been reduced on the dossier and the final vote of the MEPs could already be held at mini-plenary scheduled for May 31st Bruxelles. Now the text is in the hands of the industry commission of theEurocamera. Asap is one of the three guidelines that make up the strategy of Twenty seven to restock Kiev: the delivery of weapons from stocks existing with a cost of up to one billion euros covered by the European Peace Facility (Epf), the joint purchase of more ammunition for the Ukraine with another billion euros dell’Epfand the new plan to push the ‘in-house’ production of artillery weapons.