European Parliament President Metsola urges to supply Western-style tanks to Ukraine
The European Union should speed up the process of Ukraine's joining the EU
Roberta Metsola, the head of the European Parliament, stated this to the AFP agency in an interview during the plenary session of the parliament in Strasbourg.
The head of the European Parliament also emphasized that the EU should also supply Western-style tanks to Ukraine.
Metsola said she would express her position on this at the EU leaders' summit in Prague on Friday.
"The Ukrainians need weapons that they can fight with in order to regain their territory, and that means, for example, Leopard II tanks that several member states have," Metsola said.
It should be noted that Germany, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Norway, as well as Switzerland and Turkey, which are not part of the EU, have a total of approximately 2,000 tanks.
Metsola said that countries that would like to provide tanks would receive compensation from the EU fund. According to her, the fund has already allocated 2.5 billion euros for military purchases for Ukraine.
"I think these are discussions we need to have now, especially because we are seeing russia is escalating but also on the flipside when we are seeing Ukraine successfully pushing the russians out," she said.
Let's emphasize that there are countries in the EU that are concerned that large batches of weapons from their arsenals could endanger their own national defense potential.
However, Metsola claims that the supply of Leopard tanks "would not significantly dent individual countries' overall preparedness."
The head of the European Parliament also repeated her call to accelerate Ukraine's accession to the European Union.
It will be recalled that Ukraine has long sought the supply of Leopard II tanks of German development. But Berlin disagrees, arguing that any such handover must be part of a broader deal between the Western allies.
