Signal No. 154 · Peace Facility: EUR 6.6 billion, split three ways

The Political and Security Committee, the member states' ambassadors, reached political agreement in Brussels on Friday on the terms for releasing EUR 6.6 billion of European Peace Facility money for Ukraine. Kaja Kallas, the High Representative, set out the split on X: EUR 4.7 billion to reimburse member states for weapons they have already delivered, EUR 1 billion for joint procurement of new equipment, and EUR 900 million to top up the EU military assistance mission that trains Ukrainian soldiers on European soil. Several legal acts still have to be adopted before any money moves; defence ministers meet in Brussels on Monday. The facility has paid EUR 11.1 billion in Ukraine support since 2022.

The Hungarian veto was the first of two blockages. Viktor Orbán's government vetoed the reimbursement mechanism in May 2023, after Kyiv listed OTP Bank as a sponsor of war. Péter Magyar's government lifted it in early June. The instrument repays roughly 40 per cent of what a state sends. By June, reimbursement claims had passed EUR 40 billion, and Politico's sources already listed the 40 per cent rate itself as an open question. The fifteen weeks since June were spent on the 27's own dispute: how much each capital should be reimbursed, at what rate, and whether the money should be rolled into new support instead. Germany and Sweden say they will re-pledge their shares to Ukraine; others may follow on Monday. In July Mykhailo Fedorov, then defence minister, asked for the whole EUR 6.6 billion as military aid within six to nine months; Zelenskyy has put the defence ministry's shortfall at USD 27 billion and said it must be settled between October and November to pay for drone deliveries in the first quarter of 2027.

In a voice message to the journalists' group he briefs, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday that Donald Trump had told him at Tuesday's meeting in New York: "Yes, I have made the final decision. Ukraine will receive the licenses to produce Patriot missiles." He named no round, no company and no date. On 23 September, the day after the meeting, the State Department had told Deutsche Welle that discussions were continuing and no final decision on licences had been made; no US statement followed Friday's account by the evening. On Tuesday night, leaving the same meeting, Zelenskyy had said the production licence "is for the future" and put his request for interceptors from US stocks first.

The sequence on the licence, from this record: Trump told Zelenskyy at the Ankara summit on 8 July that Ukraine could have the right to build the interceptor, adding that he had not told Lockheed Martin; on 31 July at Camp David he said the United States "has not agreed"; on 13 September, aboard Air Force One, he said talks concerned "a less sophisticated version" of the round; on 23 September the State Department said no final decision had been made. Lockheed Martin and RTX called the discussions early-stage and awaiting government guidance in late July, and no export authorisation, congressional notification or manufacturer statement has been reported since.

In the same briefing Zelenskyy said the American side had proposed a technical-level meeting in a three-way format: "We are awaiting a proposal from the United States regarding the date, and the United States has suggested the Emirates as a possible location." On timing: "We will inform and discuss these details with the European side, the Americans will talk to the Russians, and we will return in 10 days with either a new perspective or a result." The Kremlin said on Friday that a three-way meeting could happen soon, with no further detail. Yuri Ushakov had offered Abu Dhabi as the venue on 9 September and Dmitry Peskov cited the Emirates' readiness to host on the 11th; Washington's proposal now names the same place.

Reuters reported on Thursday evening from the executive summary of the European Defence Agency's first annual Defence Readiness Report, prepared for EU leaders. Member states' current plans "do not seem to meet" the goal of closing the gaps by 2030 in air and missile defence, ground combat, naval forces, munition stockpiles and drones, the agency writes. Progress in spending, capability development and industrial readiness has "not yet" produced "sufficiently deployable, sustainable and interoperable forces". Reaching readiness by 2030 "requires moving further and substantially faster than now". Leaders commissioned the assessment last year; defence ministers take it in Brussels on Monday, after which it goes to the European Council. Reuters' summary carries no figure for the size of any gap or the money the agency says is missing.

Boris Pistorius met Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi, Hungary's new defence minister, in Budapest on Friday and named military logistics, defence-industrial cooperation and training as the fields for deeper cooperation, dpa reports. "Berlin and Budapest are growing politically closer together again," he said. "It is a restart of the relations between our countries." Ruszin-Szendi: "We are continuing the programmes we started together." He named the space industry as a further field and added: "We will be allies again. We will act as is expected of us and as we expect of our allies." No document was signed.

The joint programmes are German exports. Hungary ordered 44 Leopard 2 and 24 PzH 2000 from Krauss-Maffei Wegmann in 2018 and gave Rheinmetall a Lynx KF41 contract of more than EUR 2 billion in 2020. The Lynx plant at Zalaegerszeg and an ammunition plant at Várpalota both opened under Orbán, and Rheinmetall bought 25 per cent of the Hungarian group 4iG. Ruszin-Szendi told the meeting that an extensive investigation of arms deals and procurement contracts for possible corruption is running, and that he would not pre-empt the authorities. The same government lifted Hungary's veto on the Peace Facility reimbursements in June.

The Finnish Air Force said on Friday that Finnish and Swedish quick-reaction-alert fighters were scrambled on Thursday to intercept and identify Russian military aircraft in international airspace over the Gulf of Finland: a Tu-134 transport, MiG-31 and Su-30 fighters. The mission was led by the Finnish Air Operations Centre with F/A-18 Hornets and JAS 39 Gripens. It ran under the cooperation on surveillance and protection of territorial integrity that began this autumn, which the release says "enables joint identification missions and allows QRA fighter jets to operate from the other country's air bases". The jets stay on alert at their national bases and "may operate from each other's bases, if necessary". Last week the Finnish Navy's commander said a Swedish Visby-class corvette will deploy to the Gulf of Finland under Finnish command.