The EU has agreed an extra \u20ac2bn for a fund that has been used to supply\u00a0Ukraine\u00a0with weapons.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday signed off the money for the \u201cEuropean Peace Facility\u201d, a fund that has been largely used to reimburse member states for supplying Ukraine with weapons and non-lethal military kit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis decision sends a clear political signal of the EU\u2019s enduring commitment to military support for Ukraine and other partners alike,\u201d the EU Council of Ministers said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u20ac5bn fund was established last year with the aim of boosting security, but was rapidly becoming depleted following successive donations to Ukraine, raising concerns about whether the EU could maintain the flow of weapons and assist other states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u20ac2bn top up was approved on Monday, despite concerns about Hungary<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cblackmail diplomacy\u201d, after Budapest blocked an \u20ac18bn financial aid package for Ukraine last week. Hungary has previously signed off on the EU weapons fund for Ukraine, although it does not allow arms to pass through its territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Commenting on Budapest\u2019s position on Ukraine, one senior diplomat said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a type of blackmail diplomacy that we would rather not see, but it is what it is, so we will have to deal with it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Separately EU ministers also issued a statement condemning Iran for supplying\u00a0Russia\u00a0with weapons that have been used \u201cindiscriminately by Russia\u201d against Ukraine\u2019s civilian population. It also warned Iran against any new deliveries of weapons to Russia including short-range ballistic missiles, which it said would \u201cconstitute a serious escalation\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The EU is discussing its ninth round of sanctions against Russia, which include bans on the sale of drones and parts. Officials are concerned that Iranian weapons used in Ukraine, including drones, are being manufactured in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The EU has agreed an extra \u20ac2bn for a fund that has been used to supply\u00a0Ukraine\u00a0with weapons. EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday signed off the money for the \u201cEuropean Peace Facility\u201d, a fund that has been largely used to reimburse member states for supplying Ukraine with weapons and non-lethal military kit. \u201cThis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":19850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[6850,5522,1904,7556,10347,8041,7445,159,6621,9505,4579,9643,5626,9833,5572,6864,12985,5612,11973,12727,5396,9374,3457,5713,5655,5180,5724,3954],"class_list":["post-28386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-aid","tag-arms","tag-brussels","tag-budapest","tag-diplomacy","tag-diplomat","tag-drones","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union-eu","tag-fund","tag-hungary","tag-meeting","tag-military","tag-ministers","tag-missiles","tag-money","tag-one","tag-package","tag-peace","tag-population","tag-russia","tag-sanctions","tag-security","tag-ukraine","tag-weapons","tag-will"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n