Josep Borrell, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, outlined the four-year proposal to EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Thursday.
Following the meeting, Borrell said the EU would “transform existing support into a long-term commitment” to Ukraine’s security and resilience.
“We propose the creation of a dedicated section on the European peace facility to provide up to five billion euros a year for the next four years for the defense needs of Ukraine,” he said.
“This is the evaluation of the needs and the costs of our long-term security commitments to Ukraine,” Borrell told reporters.
The proposal came amid an international drive to give Ukraine long-term security assurances, as announced by members of the G7 group on the sidelines of last week’s NATO summit in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, Al Jazeera reported.
At that summit, NATO leaders said Ukraine should be able to join the military alliance in the future but stopped short of offering it an immediate invitation – an outcome that was not what Ukrainian officials had hoped for.
“Ukraine’s future is in NATO,” they said in a declaration but offered no timeline for the process.
Mindful of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s disappointment over his hopes for a membership timetable, Western officials stressed that there would be a broader package of support proposals designed to give Ukraine a military edge over Russian forces.
EU foreign ministers were shown the fund plan at Thursday’s foreign affairs council, but a more detailed debate will take place on August 31 at their meeting in the Spanish city of Toledo.
Some member states, notably Hungary, may oppose the idea, and final political approval is not expected until European leaders meet at EU summits in October or even December.
The European Peace Facility (EPF), created in 2021, is meant to finance actions that prevent conflicts, build peace and strengthen international security. It was initially worth $6.3bn, but has since grown to $13.4bn.