EU leaders to press Burnham to pay more towards Ukraine’s defence

Officials will call on UK to ‘step up’ financial support at Brussels summit – with post-Brexit issues also on agenda

EU leaders will press Andy Burnham at a summit in Brussels to contribute more to Ukraine’s defence effort in 2027.

EU officials argue that the UK, Canada and Japan should do more to support Ukraine, but entreaties to these G7 countries for extra financial aid at recent international meetings have not been answered, Brussels says.

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, will call on the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, to contribute to Ukraine’s looming financial shortfall at an EU-Canada summit in Montreal next week.

A similar request to the British prime minister will be made when he meets von der Leyen and the European Council president, António Costa, for a long-awaited EU-UK summit on 20 November in Brussels. It comes as the UK chancellor, John Healey, prepares for his first budget next week, weighing numerous calls for more spending against the rising cost of government borrowing and a darkening economic outlook.

Healey said earlier this month he was “working on different ways we can step up support for Ukraine – military, diplomatic and economic”.

Ukraine says it faces a €70bn (£58bn) funding shortfall in 2027 to pay for its defence and civilian needs.

The EU and its member states are paying for 80% of Ukraine’s financial needs, according to the commission, which considers a “fair” EU share to be two-thirds, with the remaining third covered by other allies. “We will continue to lead, but we urgently need other partners to step up,” von der Leyen told reporters last week, without naming countries.

The EU last year agreed a €90bn loan for Ukraine, intended to cover two-thirds of Kyiv’s funding in 2026 and 2027. But as Russia escalates its attacks, dragging the war into its fifth winter, Ukraine’s costs continue to spiral.

EU officials have prioritised non-EU G7 countries, above all the UK, Canada and Japan. But they are now casting the net wider and may look to Switzerland, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand to promise additional aid to Ukraine.

The British government says it has committed £25bn to Ukraine, including £16bn in military aid.

The UK is Ukraine’s fourth largest donor, behind the US, Germany and France, according to the Kiel Institute’s Ukraine Support Tracker. But the picture changes when the UK’s share is weighted to GDP. The UK was assessed by the Kiel researchers as spending 0.86% of national income to support Ukraine, compared with 1.1% from France and 1.5% from Germany. These three large European economies spent significantly less than the Nordics and Baltics, such as Denmark (4.2%) and Estonia (3.8%). The UK is more in line with France and Germany when their contribution to EU programmes is stripped out.

The UK government has been contacted for comment.

The European Commission declined to comment on specific countries, but referred to a recent statement: “We always said that we cannot walk this alone … therefore our partners in general must step up.”

Ukraine will be one of several issues on the agenda at the EU-UK summit, where leaders are expected to conclude three agreements: a food and animal health (SPS) deal to reduce Brexit paperwork; the linkage of the EU and UK emissions trading schemes (ETS) to protect British industry from European carbon taxes; and a youth mobility scheme to enable 18- to 30-year-olds to live, work, travel and study across both sides of the Channel.

In a positive sign for British negotiators, the European Commission proposed deferring the question of university tuition fees, one of the last big sticking points. The UK would like to charge EU students at British universities the international rate, about four times higher than the domestic fee. The EU, where many officials are alumni of British universities, wants to return to the pre-Brexit status quo, when EU students paid home rates.

Commission officials have proposed resolving this thorny question in technical talks within six months of the 20 November summit, rather than risk derailing the high-profile leaders’ meeting. But senior EU sources are confident they still have leverage on the issue, as the SPS and ETS deals will not come into force until there is a youth mobility agreement acceptable to the European side, including on tuition fees.

“The three elements are a sort of gift to the UK, but not a massive gift,” an EU diplomat said, adding that the EU would still have clout in the negotiations over the fees. “The leverage is that the UK needs this [the other agreements].” UK hopes to strike economic security agreements with the EU, to avoid British industry becoming collateral damage of Europe’s defensive measures against China, are seen as another source of leverage.

But a second diplomat said there was no consensus among the EU’s 27 member states on postponing the tuition fees question until after the summit: “There is no clear majority saying ‘let’s drop it now for six months’,” they said.