EU Commission shares expectations from Brussels summit
Photo: The European Commission spoke about expectations from the March 20 summit in Brussels (Getty Images)
The European Council summit will take place in Brussels on March 20. Defense and support for Ukraine will be among the key issues at the summit, European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said at a briefing in Kyiv.
“Well, just this week, actually, just yesterday, the European Commission unveiled our Rearm Europe initiative, which will allow us to mobilize up to 800 billion euros over the next four years to strengthen our defense capabilities, to increase our defense spending,” he said.
Therefore, according to Dombrovskis, the Rearm Europe package is certainly expected to be discussed, and “hopefully decisions and willingness to move forward with this package.”
“There I would highlight from this Rearm Europe initiative, one part of it is so-called safe 50 billion euro EU financing program where, for example, Ukraine military industry can participate on equal footing as EU military industry,” the Vice President of the European Commission said.
In other words, as the EC representative stated, Ukraine is being integrated into the overall efforts to strengthen the EU's defense potential.
“I would expect exactly those defense matters and also continued EU support for Ukraine being very much in the agenda,” Dombrovskis summarized.
Summit in Brussels
EU leaders will gather for a summit in Brussels on March 20. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will speak at the summit.
According to Reuters, EU leaders will pledge to do more to make the bloc more competitive by strengthening its military power on March 20. This is necessary because of US tariffs and doubts about Washington's future defense support.
This is the second EU summit in recent times. The EU summit in Brussels was held on March 6. Back then, the leaders of 26 of the 27 EU states agreed on a declaration in support of Ukraine.
