Luxembourg’s prime minister, Luc Frieden, said on Tuesday his country plans to contribute to a new NATO-led arrangement where European countries pay for shipments of US weapons to Ukraine.
A NATO official told Euractiv that a new wave of promises from European NATO countries to buy US military hardware for Ukraine via the PURL initiative is expected in September.
Luxembourg, the military alliance’s smallest member, has decided to participate in the PURL mechanism, as Frieden announced, which brings the number of countries officially participating in PURL to nine.
At the core of the PURL arrangement are $500 million (roughly €428 million) packages of US-built military equipment, perhaps most importantly the expensive and tough-to-replace Patriot air-defence systems.
Frieden suggested that Luxembourg will not fund an entire $500 million package alone, but is looking for partners. He did not specify how much Luxembourg is willing to contribute
“We will finance the package together with other countries which we still have to identify, a package of already available arms, to a large extend US arms, that we will provide to Ukraine,” he explained.
Belgium announced €100 million in funding on Friday, while Canada ($500m), Germany ($500m) and Lithuania ($30m) all contributed to PURL in August.
The Netherlands also pledged funding for an entire $500 million package earlier in the summer, while Denmark, Norway and Sweden announced plans to jointly fund a $500 million installment.
Finland and the United Kingdom have expressed interest in the scheme, but have not yet announced any contributions.
Military aid for Ukraine will be counted toward NATO’s 5% of GDP defence-related spending target under guidelines agreed at June’s NATO summit in The Hague.
(cp, bts)