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On April 17th-18th a Special European Council took place. Over the course of a two-day summit, the EU leaders adopted several conclusions on different topics, one of them being the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Regarding this issue, the European Council reached several conclusions. On one hand, the Council reassured the Union’s complete support for Ukraine, its people and its independence, as well as the sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders. The EU leaders reaffirmed that Russia should be condemned for its ongoing air and missile assaults on Ukrainian civilians and essential civilian infrastructure, particularly the recent heightened focus on the energy sector. On this note, the Council shared that the European Union and its Member States plan on increasing the delivery of humanitarian and civil protection aid, including essential equipment such as power generators and transformers, in order to provide the population with electricity and electrical power distribution.
Along the summit, the European heads underlined the urgent need to supply Ukraine with air defense promptly, and to accelerate the delivery of all essential military aid, encompassing artillery ammunition and missiles. The European Council also, approves of the advancements in proposals to allocate extraordinary revenues from Russia’s immobilized assets for the betterment of Ukraine and urges their swift adoption.
Regarding this last point, the Council clarified that military support, will be provided respecting completely the security and defense policy established in certain Member States and always having in mind the security and defense concerns of every Member State.
As a summary, since the war began, this is the aid that Ukraine has benefited from on the part of the EU and its member states. The EUs aid and solidarity package with Ukraine, figures up to March 18th, have been the following.
Regarding the financial and economic support, the EU and the member states have contributed more than 93 billion euros in support for Ukraine’s economy, emergency, and its early recovery.
On food provision and security and solidarity lanes. Over the last years the EU has stablished routes in other to help Ukraine export its agricultural products. These are the so-called security lanes, which have facilitated over 55% food exports from Ukraine via land routes and EU ports. The lanes have also been useful for Ukraine’s non-agricultural goods and to receive humanitarian aid.
On the humanitarian aid aspect, the European Union and its member states, have destined three billion euros in humanitarian assistance and relief aid. When talking about the protection of civilians, 796 million euros have been the value of in-kind assistance and emergency operations via the EU civil protection mechanism.
Regarding Ukraine’s security and defense aspects, the amount of 33 billion euros has been sent, so as to strengthen the capabilities of the Ukrainian armed forces.
And concerning the last topic, welcoming refugees, 17 billion euros have been relocated to take care of hosting these refugees coming from Ukraine, over 4.2 million people who have fled Ukraine were benefiting from temporary protection in the EU.
Back on March 21st, among the European Council stated the following, “The European Council is ever more steadfast in its support for Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders. Russia must not prevail”, and this has been proven over the last month, specially as to the last EU summit in April 17th. EU leaders have on multiple occasions demanded that Rusia immediately cease its military actions and unreservedly retract all forces and military equipment from Ukraine and fully respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence.
Without a doubt, the Europeans leaders have demonstrated their support of Ukraine against this military invasion and plan to keep the aid coming, having a special focus on the military defense and protection of civilians.