Increasing ammunition production in Europe is in the hands of national governments, who can re-prioritise orders, Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said on Tuesday (21 November), amid concerns that the EU may fail to send the planned one million rounds of ammunition to Ukraine by March.

“The problem is not production capacity but contractualisation,” Breton told EU lawmakers in Strasbourg.

“[EU] defence ministers must very firmly ask their defence companies to have a priority for Ukraine, at least for the next few months,” he said, adding that “it is estimated that the member states do not award enough contracts”.

EU governments have committed to sending one million rounds of ammunition to Ukraine by the end of March 2024 to help the country fight off Russia’s invading forces, which fire 10 times the volume of rounds compared to the Ukrainians. However, concerns have arisen that the EU may not be able to keep its promise.

Last week, the EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell was the first high-ranking EU official to admit that the bloc might “not reach [the target] by the end of the year”.

Under the EU’s ammunition plan, 300,000 shells have been delivered so far and 180,000 are currently in production, one EU senior official told Euractiv. This amount comes on top of what EU countries are delivering as part of bilateral commitments with Kyiv, which could increase the overall amount.

Empty and misused production lines

While production capacity “has increased by 20 to 30% since February 2023”, the EU’s external service “estimates that 40% of production in Europe goes outside Europe,” Breton said.

The French commissioner therefore called on companies to “perhaps re-discuss” their commercial commitments with third countries.

“With this increase in power, if we prioritise production in the coming months for Europe and Ukraine, of course, the indicated amount will be reached,” Breton said.

When the Commission proposed its Act in support of ammunition production (ASAP) before the summer to help industries fund the ramp-up of shell manufacturing, it proposed a measure whereby the EU could push the industries to re-prioritise orders, which means sending the shells originally meant for other countries to Ukraine.

The 27 refused that option and called on the executive to propose that measure again at a later stage.

Asked by EU lawmaker Nathalie Loiseau (Renew, France) to confirm that the Americans have been keeping European production lines busy, Breton said he had noticed during his tour of defence industries on the continent that “certain key elements of the valuables were purchased by American manufacturers”.

Breton also asked the governments to go ahead and place orders for the purchase of ammunition – which the industry says it is still waiting for.

“It is estimated that the member states do not award enough contracts – and not just for their own national defence industry”, he said, pushing for the 27 to purchase nationally but also from other companies.

“We are in the process of globalising, building a real European defence market”.

Striking a positive note, Breton said that “thanks to ASAP, in the spring we will have exceeded a million [ammunition production capacity in one year] and at the end of the year 1.3 or 1.4 million”.

Thinking longer term, Breton said, the European Commission, with the 27 member states and the European Parliament, “launched a programme to see how to expand ASAP to other defence sectors, to increase production capacity in the areas such as drones or other types of products, which we know we will need in Europe and Ukraine.”

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]

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