France and Germany will continue to support Ukraine in its war with Russia for “as long as necessary”, top diplomats from the two major EU powers declared following a meeting in Berlin on Sunday.
After travelling to Kyiv to signal that Ukraine remains a top priority for the French government, recently installed Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Stéphane Séjourné stopped off in Berlin to express a united front amid growing doubts about continued funding from the United States and potentially even the European Union.
“We are in full agreement that we must support the Ukrainians for as long as necessary,” the French diplomat declared according to Le Figaro. “This means that we must organise at the European level elements of initiatives which are coordinated on the defence of our values and our interests.”
His German counterpart, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, echoed the sentiment, vowing that Berlin would remain “on the side of Ukraine as long as necessary,” and until Russia has “withdrawn from Ukrainian territory.”
14 January 2024, Berlin: Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (r, Alliance 90/The Greens) and France’s new Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne make a joint statement at the Federal Foreign Office. Photo: Soeren Stache/dpa (Photo by Soeren Stache/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Notwithstanding the strong words from Berlin and Paris, there have been simmering tensions over the issue of funding to Ukraine, with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz calling upon individual European nations to increase their funding to continue the war.
“The arms deliveries for Ukraine planned so far by the majority of EU member states are by all means too small,” Scholz said last week. He went on to call for a full accounting of what each member state intends to send to Ukraine in terms of money and weapons over the next year, saying that there needs to be “higher contributions” among other European nations.
Although Scholz did not single out any specific nation, observers were quick to link the comments to France, which despite being a strong proponent of the EU as a whole sending more money to Kyiv, has lagged far behind other major powers in its own donations.
According to the Ukraine Support Tracker complied by the Kiel Institute, France only committed a little over half a billion euros in military support to Ukraine from the time of the Russian invasion until July 31st. In comparison, during the same time frame, Germany sent €17 billion and the UK sent €6.6 billion.
According to the analysis, France was even outspent by Lithuania at €715 million, despite the Eastern European nation only having a population of around 2.8 million compared to over 67 million in France.
France has argued that the tracker does not account for all types of military assistance, including intelligence gathering and training of Ukrainian soldiers, which taken in conjunction with their contribution to the EU funding for Ukraine, Paris claims takes its total support up to around €3.2 billion, POLITICO reported.
Nevertheless, as voters are set to go to the polls to decide the next president of the United States as well as for the European Parliament elections in June, funding for Ukraine will likely be a key political issue on both sides of the Atlantic in 2024.
Currently, Republicans in the House of Representatives are blocking President Joe Biden’s request for an additional $64 billion in American taxpayer dollars for Ukraine — on top of the $113 billion already committed — and $50 billion in further European Union funding is on hold over objections from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
The uncertain future of funding for the war has seemingly not phased leadership in Kyiv, with Zelensky’s government telling representatives of 81 countries and international institutions that it has no intention of agreeing to a ceasefire with Russia and doubled down on its demands that negotiations can only begin once Moscow has already ceded the territory it is occupying, including Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014 and has controlled since.