The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, has said that the European Union will not be able to compensate Ukraine for the assistance provided by the United States so far, and therefore expects Washington to make appropriate decisions as soon as possible and resume support.
Source. This was reported by the BBC.
"Of course, Europe cannot replace the United States," said Josep Borrell in Granada, Spain, where the summit of the European Political Community opened on Thursday. – "Of course, we can do more, but the United States is indispensable for helping Ukraine.
According to the European foreign policy chief, his hope, as well as the hope of all Ukrainians and all those who do not want Putin to win this war, is that the United States will look for ways to reconsider this decision and renew its support for Ukraine.
On September 30, with the end of the U.S. fiscal year, all laws providing for U.S. assistance to Ukraine, passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden, expired.
At the same time, the 2022 Ukraine Arms Export Control Act, which was adopted in 2022 but never became operational, expired, as it could have ensured uninterrupted arms supplies if other channels of assistance failed to function.
It remains unclear whether this law has been extended. As the BBC's Ukrainian Service notes, the authorities in Kyiv have mysteriously sought to downplay its importance to Ukraine throughout this year and have avoided mentioning it in their speeches and meetings with U.S. representatives.
President Biden has promised that further assistance to Ukraine will soon be resolved, but has not given a timeline for when this might happen. So far, his administration has not submitted any new bills to Congress to support Ukraine for the fiscal year that has begun.
The $24 billion appropriations bill, which provided for about $4 billion in short-term military aid for Ukraine (which, at the average rate of supply since the start of the Russian invasion, should have been enough for 3-4 months), was eventually removed from the temporary US budget for the next 45 days, which was passed last weekend in an emergency to prevent a shutdown.
Background. As a reminder, Republican McCarthy was dismissed from the post of Speaker of the House of Representatives. He was accused of allegedly making a secret deal with Biden to support Ukraine. Voting for the new speaker will take place next week.