EU “Running Out of Weapons” – Josep Borrell

Josep Borrell, the EU’s High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, cautioned that the EU is emptying its stock of weaponry, as member states of the EU continue to send Ukraine billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to fight against Russia’s invasion.

“The military stocks of most member states has been, I wouldn’t say exhausted, but depleted in a high proportion, because we have been providing a lot of capacity to the Ukrainians,” Borrell stated during a conversation with other EU officials.

He emphasised the necessity for better spending coordination among the bloc’s member nations, claiming that the availability of weaponry “has to be refilled. The best way of refilling is doing that together. It will be cheaper.”

He added that by doing this, unnecessary and costly duplications would be avoided.

Borrell continued by arguing that if the EU had begun preparing Ukrainian soldiers prior to Putin’s invasion, as some member states had requested in 2021 due to indications of a rising Russian threat, the situation would currently be better. 

“Unhappily, we didn’t, and today we regret” not taking those preemptive measures, he confessed.