The European Commission has cleared Ukraine to spend part of a €6.1 billion defence package, drawn from the European Union’s €90 billion support loan, on Ukrainian-made drones and US-built Patriot interceptor missiles.
The Commission approved five exceptions to the loan’s standard procurement rules today. Three cover Ukrainian drones and components whose cost exceeds set limits, while two allow the purchase of American equipment, including PAC-3 missiles for Patriot air defence systems.
EU Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius told reporters in Brussels the move formally allowed Kyiv to buy PAC-3 missiles with EU money. He said part of the American purchases would go through a joint procurement mechanism coordinated by NATO.
The decision followed agreement by member states on September 8 to let Ukraine buy crucial Patriot products outside Europe. The loan generally caps non-European content at 35 per cent of a purchase’s value unless no European or Ukrainian alternative can be delivered in time.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that agreement cleared the way for a €3.2 billion payment to Kyiv. Kubilius argued the exceptions were needed because Ukraine’s military edge depended on receiving critical equipment quickly and in sufficient quantities.
The €6.1 billion package was approved by the Commission on August 24 for air and missile defence systems, missiles, ammunition and radars. With the latest decision, Kubilius said all €28.3 billion earmarked for Ukraine’s defence this year had now been allocated.
The Commission was processing further payment requests worth €4.7 billion, on top of the €8.3 billion already disbursed, he said. Contracts would be checked against the loan’s conditions before any money was released, he added.
The EU-Ukraine Drone Alliance also held its first meeting in Brussels today, a step Kubilius called historic. Its 18 founding members, nine from the EU and nine from Ukraine, were selected from some 400 applications, according to the commissioner.
The initiative was launched in July, around the time von der Leyen signed an EU-Ukraine drone deal in Kyiv. The EU members named by the Commission include Spain’s Indra, Italy’s Fincantieri, Germany’s Quantum Systems and Poland’s WB Group.
The companies would work on joint ventures, supply chains and faster development of new technologies before meeting again by the end of the year. Kubilius said Europe needed “to learn from Ukraine how to scale up”.
He contrasted EU output of about 1.5 million drones a year with Russian capacity he put at up to 10 million first-person-view (FPV) drones, 130,000 jet-powered drones and 1,700 ballistic missiles annually.
Europe had to match Russian production, Kubilius said. He argued it needed production lines that could stay active when demand dropped and be scaled up within weeks when required.
