EU Council mobilises €4.9 billion for Ukraine under the European Peace Facility after months of deadlock

The Council of the European Union has adopted a set of decisions that mobilise €4.9 billion for Ukraine under the European Peace Facility (EPF), the bloc’s off-budget fund for military assistance. In its announcement on 26 October, the Council said the decisions allow the partial reimbursement of military aid already delivered to Ukraine and provide additional financing for the EU Military Assistance Mission in Support of Ukraine (EUMAM).

The step is the formal conclusion of a long political fight over money that had been held up inside the EU for months.

What the Council decided

According to the Council, the package has two parts. The first is the partial reimbursement of member states for military equipment they have already sent to Ukraine. The second is extra funding for EUMAM, the mission that trains Ukrainian soldiers. The short press release published so far does not break the €4.9 billion down between the two, nor does it say how the reimbursements will be shared among national capitals, so those details should be confirmed from the full Council documents.

How the deadlock was broken

The decisions follow a political agreement announced on 25 September by EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas. She wrote then that member states had “agreed on the terms for releasing 6.6 billion euro European Peace Facility funds for Ukraine”. According to the Kyiv Independent’s report of that announcement, the larger package was split into €4.7 billion to reimburse member states for weapons already delivered, €900 million for EUMAM and €1 billion for new joint procurement of equipment.

The same report says Hungary, under then prime minister Viktor Orbán, had blocked the EPF reimbursement mechanism and taken the matter to court, which dismissed the case on 9 September. After Orbán left office, EU countries still disagreed on reimbursement rates and on whether the money should be rolled into new support for Ukraine. Germany and Sweden were reported to have indicated that they would pledge their shares of the reimbursement to new help for Kyiv.

The EPF is financed by contributions from EU member states and, according to the Kyiv Independent, has provided Ukraine with €11.1 billion since 2022.

Why it matters

The reimbursement mechanism is what lets governments recover part of the cost of the arms they hand over, which in turn makes it easier for them to keep sending more. EUMAM, meanwhile, remains the EU’s main channel for training Ukrainian troops, working alongside the US-led training effort at Grafenwoehr in Germany pictured above.

The decision comes as Brussels is also preparing for a November round of talks on ending the war. Our earlier report on Zelensky: territory only at leaders’ level in the November trilateral talks, with a US-Ukraine-EU-NATO meeting planned in Brussels covers that track, and the EU’s wider political line on Ukraine is set out in European Council conclusions on Ukraine: air defence, 21st sanctions package and a call for an unconditional ceasefire.