Greece and Spain declined to send Ukraine air-defence missiles while Ireland was alone in calling out Israel, in the EU’s first defence brainstorm after a lethal summer in Ukraine and Gaza.
Russian airstrikes killed 400 Ukrainian civilians in July because Kyiv did not have enough interceptor missiles, but Greece and Spain declined to open their stockpiles at an EU defence ministers’ meeting in the Druids Glen golf club near Dublin on Tuesday (1 September).
“There were calls and talks about these missiles but there was, unfortunately, no concrete success today regarding this,” said EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas, without naming the two holdouts, the way some ministers, such as Dutch arms-procurement minister Derk Boswijk, did earlier the same day.
“Patriot missiles about to expire [by Nato standards] should be sent to Ukraine,” said Kallas.
But Greek defence minister Nikos Dendias also told press in Ireland that Athens needed its anti-air capacity to deal with “revisionism in the Eastern Mediterranean”, alluding to Turkey.
