Borrell urges EU reinforcement of defence industry for possible threats

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has urged the bloc to strengthen the defence industry and meet the reserves so that it is ready to face potential <x0 threats”, while continuing to provide military assistance to Ukraine.

Ukraine, which relies heavily on Western supplies of military equipment, especially of the United States, has been forced to ration its ammunition reserves in the face of an increasingly intense attack from Russia.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine entered the third year.

After two years of high-intensity combat, available supplies have been depleted, and the conflict has shifted from a supply struggle to a production war”, Borrell wrote on March 11th in an article on the European Industrial Defence Strategy that was presented to the European Commission on March 5th.

While a critical 60 billion dollar military aid package remains blocked in the US House of Representatives, due to republican opposition, Ukraine has become more dependent on supplies from European allies.

Borrell said the EU must urgently overcome its current defence industry division and become “ready for defence” through procurements and more joint defence projects.

While consolidating its defence capabilities and increasing production, the EU “could use the unexpected profits of Russian frozen assets to buy weapons for Ukraine and/or help strengthen its defence industry”, Borrell wrote.

“So far, we have considered using these profits to support the reconstruction of Ukraine. Currently, however, the main issue in Ukraine is not so much reconstruction, but avoiding further destruction”, he wrote.

His comments came as CNN, citing an unidentified senior European intelligence official, reported on March 11th that Russia was producing three times more artillery ammunition than the United States and the EU combined.

“It is now a production war,” told CNN, the senior official NATO.

Russia is currently producing 250,000 artillery shells a month, or about 3 million a year, the source told CNN, adding that the United States and Europe together have the capacity to send Ukraine about 1.2 million shells annually.

As it enhances its production skills, Russia reportedly has also imported massive quantities of artillery from North Korea and Iran.

In late January, Borrell acknowledged that the EU would be far from its previously set target of sending 1 million artillery shells to Ukraine by March, saying that about half had been delivered by that deadline, and that the rest would be sent by the end of the year.

In an interview for Radio Free Europe last month, in the margins of the Security Conference in Munich, Borrell said: “We have to do more, you know. It's never enough” /Radio Free Europe