Wider Europe

Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods. To subscribe, click here.

I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I'm drilling down on two major issues: Will EU leaders finally green-light more ammunition to Ukraine, and what's included in the NATO secretary-general's annual report?

Brief #1: EU Leaders Could Agree On Sending More Ammunition To Ukraine

What You Need To Know: European Union leaders will gather for another summit in Brussels on March 23-24. While the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy stole the show with a surprise visit at their last meeting in February, this gathering is set to be a more low-key affair, focusing on how to kick-start the European economy. Of course, Ukraine will still feature a good deal, especially as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been invited to discuss the situation in the country.

The main issue right now remains how the EU can provide more ammunition to Kyiv. The bloc's defense ministers discussed the issue when they met in Stockholm earlier this month, and EU foreign ministers are likely to agree on the main principles of a plan on March 20 before leaders can potentially sign off on it during the summit.

The idea is that Brussels will use the European Peace Facility (EPF) -- an off-EU budget funding mechanism for military investment. Of the 8 billion euros ($8.5 billion) available in this pot, over 3 billion euros has already gone to EU member states for previous weapons deliveries to Ukraine. Now the suggestion is that another 1 billion euros will firstly go to reimburse EU member states so that they can immediately donate ammunition from their own stockpiles. After that, EU member states will pledge to jointly buy 1 billion euros worth of new ammunition with the hope that the increased supply on the market will bring down prices.

Deep Background: So far, there are two main obstacles that could prevent a quick agreement. The first is that some countries, led by France, want purchases only of European ammunition. Others would prefer to buy from further afield -- countries such as South Korea -- as current European stockpiles are being depleted and production capacity on the continent might not be ramped up immediately.

Another issue is that some countries worry that all the EPF money will be used up for Ukraine -- and very quickly. The kitty of 8 billion euros was supposed to last until 2027, but with over 5 billion euros already spent or earmarked for Kyiv, those fears are for good reason. Ukraine is also likely to need a lot more ammunition going forward as there is little indication that the war will end soon.

According to an EU concept note on the issue, seen by RFE/RL, Russian forces have been firing between 20,000 to 50,000 artillery rounds per day in recent months. The corresponding figure from Ukraine is significantly lower: between 4,000 to 7,000 artillery rounds daily. The estimation is that the Ukrainian Army needs at least 357,000 rounds of all types of ammunition per month.

Drilling Down

• Ammunition is not the only Ukraine-related issue that leaders will discuss. The draft summit conclusions, seen by RFE/RL and set to be adopted at the meeting, state that "Russia must immediately ensure the safe return of Ukrainians forcibly transferred or deported to Russia, in particular children."
• The EU has already sanctioned some Russian officials that Brussels deems as being instrumental in the "kidnapping" of Ukrainian children. According to EU officials familiar with the matter but who are not authorized to speak on the record, more people could be targeted soon, even though that might not be agreed on this week.
• For now, more economic sanctions on Russia seem to be off the table, with the draft summit conclusions merely noting that "the European Union remains committed to maintaining and further increasing collective pressure on Russia."
• This won't prevent some member states, notably in the east, from pushing for more concrete language on future sanctions packages targeting the Russian nuclear industry, diamond imports into the bloc, and further restrictive measures against Russian people and companies believed to be spreading pro-Kremlin war narratives.
• There could be movement on another round of sanctions on Belarus, either in the run-up to or on the sidelines of the summit. A new set of restrictive measures against Minsk was proposed by the European Commission over a month ago, but it has been held up as Lithuania, backed by the other Baltic states, is unhappy about sanctions derogations proposed in the package for Belarusian fertilizers. Portugal is the main supporter of these derogations, arguing that Belarusian fertilizers are needed to contribute to food security, particularly in poorer countries worldwide.
• It's also possible that potential sanctions will be discussed against people or entities trying to destabilize Moldova. This is currently being explored by Brussels after a recent request from Chisinau. So far, the draft conclusions simply note that "the European Union will continue to provide all relevant support to the Republic of Moldova, including support to help strengthen the country's resilience, security, stability, economy, and energy supply."

Brief #2: NATO Secretary-General To Look Back On The Alliance's Momentous, Difficult Year

What You Need To Know: On March 21 at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg will present his annual report for 2022 -- reviewing one of the most momentous years in the military alliance's history.

In the report, which RFE/RL has seen excerpts of, he reflects on Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, noting that "President Putin wants a different Europe. He sees democracy and freedom as a threat, and he seeks to control his neighbors. So even if the war in Ukraine ends tomorrow, our security environment has changed for the long-term. There is simply no going back." He also adds that "Putin must not win. If he does, it will show that aggression works and that force is rewarded. This would be dangerous for our own security, and for the whole world."

Just like the final declaration from the NATO Madrid summit in June 2022, the annual report notes that NATO "cannot consider Russia to be a partner." The report adds, however, that "NATO remains willing to keep open channels of communication with Moscow to manage and mitigate risks, prevent escalation, and increase transparency."

Easier said than done, perhaps, as NATO officials familiar with the issue but who are not authorized to speak on the record tell me that, in reality, there is very little interaction with Russia at the moment. The NATO-Russia Council, which is the formal avenue for talks between the alliance and Moscow, has not met since January 2022 and no new meeting is foreseen anytime soon. To complicate matters further, Russia suspended its mission to NATO and ordered the closure of the NATO office in Moscow already in 2021.

Deep Background: Much of the annual report focuses on the war in Ukraine and the implications it has had on the alliance. It notes that, last year, the 30 NATO allies spent roughly $120 billion on military, humanitarian, and financial assistance to Ukraine. The United States was the largest single contributor, even though the European countries and Canada together provided over half of the overall assistance.

Total NATO military spending in 2022 was estimated to exceed $1 trillion. With heightened military tensions in Europe, that sum is expected to rise significantly in the years to come. According to a poll that NATO conducted among citizens in its member countries, 74 percent think that defense spending should either be maintained at current levels or increased, compared to 70 percent in 2021. In the latest poll, just 12 percent of respondents think that less should be spent on defense.

Drilling Down

• The annual report also notes some of the historic decisions taken by NATO last year. As a direct response to the Russian invasion, the alliance activated its defense plans, deploying the NATO Response Force, which includes 40,000 troops, in the eastern parts of the alliance for the very first time.
• There was also the agreement to establish four new multinational battlegroups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia, and to boost the four battlegroups already set up in the three Baltic states and Poland as a response to the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
• The report also notes the decision last June to invite Sweden and Finland to become NATO members at the Madrid summit, even though there is no indication when the Nordic pair can actually join. The parliamentary group of Hungary's ruling Fidesz party announced on March 17 that it would vote in favor of Finland's accession ratification in a vote in parliament on March 27, but that it would decide on the Swedish ratification at a later, unspecified date.
• Also on March 17, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Ankara would move ahead with the Finnish bid to join the alliance, even though no date for a vote in parliament was given. Erdogan also confirmed Turkey's continued misgivings about Sweden, notably Ankara wanting Stockholm to extradite more of its Kurdish political opponents.
• Sweden has also conceded that it will probably join later than Finland and that not much is likely to happen until after the Turkish elections in mid-May. The NATO secretary-general has, however, indicated that both countries should be members by NATO's Vilnius summit in July.
• At that summer gathering, one of the main issues will be how to deal with Ukraine's aspirations to join the alliance. Kyiv officially applied for membership back in September 2022, and NATO has always said it maintains an open-door policy. In reality though, the door is pretty much shut, as there is no chance of Ukraine joining when the country is at war.
• But there is a push, notably by eastern members of the alliance, to offer Ukraine something more at the upcoming summit in the Lithuanian capital -- with ideas ranging from a more concrete partnership with NATO, postwar security guarantees, or some sort of road map detailing eventual membership. Something similar could also be in the works for another NATO aspirant, Georgia.

Looking Ahead

On March 21, the Europe ministers of the EU's 27 member states will meet in Brussels for the monthly General Affairs Council (GAC) -- a configuration that usually deals with internal issues in the bloc, such as the preparation for EU summits or rule of law issues. For this meeting, Olha Stefanishyna, the Ukrainian deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, will join for an informal lunch to update her EU colleagues on how Kyiv is meeting the seven requirements Brussels set out last year for Ukraine to start EU accession talks.

On the same day, the bloc's 27 defense ministers will meet in Brussels with their counterparts from 45 other countries -- many from the Western Balkans and the bloc's Eastern neighborhood -- for the first-ever Schuman Security and Defense Forum. It is named after Robert Schuman, a former French prime minister, president of the European Parliament, and considered to be one of the EU's founding fathers. The idea behind the forum, which will take place every other year, is to bring together the EU's closest partners to discuss common security and defense threats. While many might wonder whether Europe really needs yet another talking shop, it does signal that the EU is starting to take defense matters more seriously.

That's all for this week. Feel free to reach out to me on any of these issues on Twitter @RikardJozwiak or on e-mail at jozwiakr@rferl.org.

Until next time,

Rikard Jozwiak

If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition, subscribe here.

Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods. To subscribe, click here.

I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I'm drilling down on two major issues: if Serbia and Kosovo can finally agree on a new deal; and the ever-dwindling EU sanctions on Ukraine's former president and his entourage.

Brief #1: Perhaps Serbia And Kosovo Can Finally Make A Deal

What You Need To Know: On February 27, Kosovo's Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic endorsed an EU-facilitated proposal in Brussels titled, the "Agreement On The Path To Normalization Between Kosovo And Serbia."

The agreement, which has been in the making since the fall of 2022 and covers numerous facets of the two countries' relationship, is not signed yet but has been officially published by the EU's foreign policy corps, the European External Action Service.

There are some caveats, though.

A senior EU official familiar with the talks told me that the text lacks any validity without the annex, which the two sides will work up before their next meeting in Ohrid, North Macedonia, on March 18.

This makes the final article in the 11-point agreement, which simply states that "both Parties commit to respect the Implementation Roadmap annexed to this Agreement" the most crucial one. A blueprint of this road map with a timeline of the implementation of the agreement exists but it is still very much a work in progress.

Deep Background: The agreement is essentially an addition to the landmark 2013 Brussels agreement between Belgrade and Pristina that set out to normalize relations between the pair after Kosovo declared independence in 2008 -- a move Serbia has never accepted.

Serbia, Kosovo, and the EU are trying to update the deal struck a decade ago, to help the Balkan pair kick-start their EU membership quests but without any formal obligation for Belgrade to recognize Kosovo's independence -- at least for now.

While Serbia opened negotiations with the EU a year after the initial Brussels agreement, in 2014, it has so far only managed to resolve two of the 34 policy fields.

With five EU member states still not recognizing Kosovo as a country, it remains the only state in the Western Balkans that still isn't an official EU candidate country and its application to join, submitted late last year, has still not been considered seriously by the bloc.

For now, that means Pristina can't even officially begin the process of working on the EU-mandated policy fields.

Drilling Down

• One of the main sticking points remaining from the 2013 agreement is the creation of an association of Serb-majority municipalities in Kosovo. Prime Minister Kurti has built his recent political success on refusing to allow this to happen, arguing that such a structure would create similar problems to those in Bosnia-Herzegovina where political entities centered around ethnicity make any reform difficult.
• The current agreement text does not explicitly mention anything about an "association" of Serb-majority municipalities. Instead, it spells out that both Belgrade and Pristina should "ensure an appropriate level of self-management for the Serbian community in Kosovo and ability for service provision in specific areas, including the possibility for financial support by Serbia and a direct communication channel for the Serbian community to the Government of Kosovo."
• The question is if such vague, noncommittal language can fly. Perhaps. Kurti could potentially try to sell it as something other than an association of Serb-majority municipalities, even though it technically amounts to pretty much the same thing and Vucic can argue that Belgrade still has avenues to financially and politically support ethnic Serbs in Kosovo.
• Since the publication of the latest document, Vucic has been adamant that he will never recognize Kosovo's independence or accept it joining the United Nations. That stance is at odds with the provisions of the new agreement, notably Article 4, which states that "Serbia will not object to Kosovo's membership in any international organization."
• The real test for progress might come this spring. First, Kosovo is seeking to join the Council of Europe; and second, the 27 EU member states will seek consensus in order to send Pristina's EU application from the European Council, which defines the political direction and priorities of the EU, to the European Commission to prepare a legal opinion. In both cases, Belgrade has been working behind the scenes to hamper any progress, according to several EU officials familiar with the issue but who are not authorized to speak on the record.
• It is also worth noting that while the deal doesn't force Belgrade to legally accept Kosovo's independence, it does include moves that essentially mean de facto recognition, such as the need to "mutually recognize their respective documents and national symbols, including passports, diplomas, license plates, and customs stamps" and the exchange of permanent missions in each other's capitals.

Brief #2: How The 'Yanukovych Sanctions' Fell Apart

What You Need To Know: The EU's sanctions machinery has gone into overdrive recently. Last week, it passed its 10th package of restrictive measures against Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine one year ago.

This included slapping visa bans and asset freezes on over 100 officials and companies, bringing the total number of sanctioned people to a record high of 1,473 individuals and 205 entities.

But that is far from all.

At the end of February, Brussels also rolled over its Belarus sanctions, consisting of 195 people and 34 firms -- plus, the bloc slapped sanctions on 32 Iranians for what it considers gross human rights violations in the country. The Iranian list now consists of nearly 200 people.

However, there is one area where the number of sanctioned people and entities is quietly diminishing and that is high-ranking Ukrainian officials that Brussels deems responsible for the "misappropriation of Ukrainian state funds."

Deep Background: These sanctions were put together immediately after the then president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, fled Ukraine for Russia in February 2014 after months of protests triggered by his decision to forgo the signing of an association agreement with the EU.

Yanukovych was listed along with his two sons, Oleksandr and Viktor, as well as 15 others in his inner circle, including the former head of the presidential administration, Andriy Klyuyev, his brother Serhiy, the former Prosecutor-General Viktor Pshonka and his son, Artem, plus two previous Ukrainian prime ministers, Mykola Azarov and Serhiy Arbuzov.

While the restrictive measures imposed were renewed in 2015, decided by consensus by all EU member states, signs that enthusiasm was waning for the measures began showing in 2016.

First, the former health minister, Raisa Bohatyriova, was taken off the list, with EU officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, telling me that it was simply due to a lack of evidence. From then on, every year, another few names were knocked off the list.

Drilling Down

• On March 1, EU ambassadors took the unanimous decision to prolong the sanctions regime by another year -- giving it a lifespan for at least a full decade. But many EU member states are questioning the wisdom of going much further, especially considering that only three out of the original 18 remain listed.
• The three are Vitaliy Zakharchenko, who served as interior minister, his deputy Viktor Ratushniak, and the businessman Serhiy Kurchenko. These are hardly the biggest names among what are informally called the "Yanukovych sanctions" in Brussels. The irony is not lost on anyone that the man himself is no longer included on the list.
• Viktor Yanukovych, his son Oleksandr, as well as Pshonka and his son were all quietly delisted in September last year without so much as a press release from Brussels. (Yanukovych's other son, Viktor, was delisted after his death in 2015.)
• That didn't mean, however, a reprieve for the Yanukovychs. In August 2022, EU ambassadors added father and son to the EU sanctions list of people who since Russia's full-scale invasion are deemed to have played a role in "undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty, and independence of Ukraine and the state's stability and security." Oleksandr Yanukovych was also listed on new EU sanctions for "conducting transactions with separatist groups in the Donbas region of Ukraine."
• If you ask diplomats in Brussels why the "Yanukovych sanctions" have unraveled so spectacularly, they will point to one thing: They were put in place in haste back in 2014 and were largely based on information from the Ukrainian authorities, information that in many cases remains incomplete.
• In turn, this led to another reason for the reluctance: Many on the list, often backed by considerable personal wealth, have employed good European lawyers to take their cases to the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
• Viktor Yanukovych and his son have won three times in the Luxembourg-based court, the earliest in 2019, with the judge demanding that the EU annul its restrictive measures imposed on the pair, noting that Ukrainian judicial authorities had not provided them with the right to defense or the right to effective judicial protection.
• The only reason they remained listed until September 2022 was that the various court verdicts always concerned previous sanction periods and didn't consider that the measures had been renewed on a constant, annual basis. For example, the 2019 judgement only concerned the sanctions period between 2016 and 2018. So, in a sense, the EU sanctions regime was saved by its own slow wheel of justice.
• In the end, not even the EU could justify keeping people on the list who scored judicial victories over the bloc in its own court. There is a fear in Brussels that many Russian officials and oligarchs now sanctioned for supporting the Russian war effort will soon test Brussels in the ECJ. The legal service of the Council of the European Union recently identified weak legal grounds for the EU listings of Russian businessmen Grigory Berezkin and Sergei Mndoiants last year, even though both remain sanctioned for now.

Looking Ahead

EU defense ministers will meet in Stockholm on March 7-8. This is an informal EU defense council meeting, meaning that no concrete decisions can be taken. That said, these sorts of gatherings usually mean that ministers spend time together in a more relaxed setting, discussing pressing needs more thoroughly.

And the most pressing need right now is Ukraine and how the EU can provide the country with more ammunition.

There was already an agreement among EU member states late in 2022 that citizens of Kosovo will be able to travel to most EU countries without a visa by January 1, 2024.

This week, this decision will start to be formalized as the bloc's interior ministers meet in Brussels on March 9-10 to rubber-stamp the deal.

The European Parliament is also expected to vote overwhelmingly in favor of the move, first in the chamber's civil liberties committee on March 22-23 and then in the full plenary, either at the end of March or in mid-April.

That's all for this week. Feel free to reach out to me on any of these issues on Twitter @RikardJozwiak or on e-mail at jozwiakr@rferl.org.

Until next time,

Rikard Jozwiak

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NOTE TO SUBSCRIBERS: Because I'll be traveling this week, the newsletter won't appear on March 13. But I'll be back in your in-boxes on March 20.