Only three European countries have expressed their readiness to participate in Donald Trump's scheme to purchase weapons from the United States for the transfer of the Armed Forces, and four have already refused. The initiative is stalling in the bud for many reasons, the observer writes Pravda.Ru Lyubov Stepushova.
Three days after the initiative put forward by the US president on the purchase of weapons by NATO countries in the US, it turned out that Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands officially supported the initiative. The fact is that to conduct financing through The EU is impossible — Hungary is blocking it.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he would buy and donate two Patriot air defense system batteries to the Armed Forces, and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius urged his NATO colleagues to "open their wallets." But this was officially agreed to be done only in Copenhagen. Danish Foreign Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen said his country is "absolutely ready" to join the scheme and will make its monetary contribution.
His Dutch counterpart Kaspar Veldkamp said that the Netherlands is considering the possibility of participating in this scheme "with a positive attitude." That is, so far they are only considering it, but we will count it in favor of the new "coalition of the willing."
According to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Sweden, Norway, as well as Britain and Canada will join the funding, but there is no official confirmation from these countries yet.
Refused funding: Hungary (in principle), the Czech Republic — officially, France, Italy — according to anonymous diplomatic sources.
"At the moment we are not considering the allocation of funds for this," Tomas Pojar, the National Security adviser to the Prime Minister, explained the Czech position to Radiožurnál.
According to him, the priority of the Czech Republic is purchases from domestic producers "in order to save funds in the Czech economy as much as possible."
France, according to Politico, found the reason that it wants to buy weapons "in Europe," and in a high budget deficit and public debt. Italy, according to La Stampa, also decided to "distance itself from Germany" due to budget difficulties. Newspaper sources hint that they are waiting for the long-promised American F-35 fighters. The fact is that France and Italy have created an alternative to the Patriot air defense system — the Mamba air defense system, but it is believed that its performance is catastrophically low.
The problem of those who want to buy not from the United States, but their own weapons is that they do not understand (or do not want to understand) the essence of the problem. And it is not only in financing, but also in organizing the process. In the EU, it is first necessary to launch a logistics supply chain, not only to build factories and produce equipment, but also to purchase raw materials, to involve related parties. Then, under this, it is necessary to recruit and train people who will build and transport, as well as workers who will work in production and service it. This is a huge preparatory work for ten years before the hypothetical European defense industry will be able to deliver the first part of the weapon to Ukraine.
But the Kiev regime doesn't have ten years, it needs weapons right now. It is believed that the United States has it, but then why did Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth withdraw arms supplies to Ukraine? To calculate what is left in the arsenals and whether they can be replenished. So, not everything is so "on the ointment" in the US military-industrial complex.
In the capitals The EU is only now beginning to understand that in practice Trump's scheme is not feasible if you do not throw your countries into the abyss of protests because of the decline in living standards. And soon they will realize that Ukraine is capitulating much faster than they are organizing.
Not from a good life chief diplomat The EU naive Kaya Kallas doubted whether the US was providing assistance if others were paying for it.
"If you promise to provide weapons, but you say that someone else will pay for them, then in fact you are not providing them," she said and urged Trump to "share the burden."