Commissioner Dombrovskis in Kyiv: EU to integrate Ukraine into mechanism of strengthening European defense

That’s according to Valdis Dombrovskis, the European Commissioner for Economy, Implementation and Simplification, who is on a visit to Kyiv on Thursday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

“Just yesterday, the European Commission unveiled our ReArm Europe initiative, which will allow us to mobilize up to EUR 800 billion over the next 40 years to strengthen our defense capabilities, to increase our defense spending. So, we obviously expect discussions on this requirement, that package, and hopefully decisions and willingness to move forward on this package,” the commissioner told a briefing, speaking about his expectation of the EU summit that kicks off its work in Brussels today.

He separately highlighted part of the ReArm Europe initiative, which is SAFE (Security Action for Europe), a financing program worth EUR 150 billion, where “Ukraine’s defense industry can participate on equal footing with the EU defense industry”.

“So, we are integrating Ukraine also in this overall work toward strengthening EU defense capability,” said Dombrosvkis.

He expressed expectations that these defense matters and continued EU support for Ukraine will be on the EU summit’s agenda.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called on European partners to ramp up the process of strengthening Ukraine and EU’s defense capabilities.