HR/VP Blog – The last European Council agreed on a new € 50 billion civilian support package for Ukraine. The day before, during our informal meeting of EU Defence Ministers, we took stock of our overall military support to Ukraine. Regarding in particular ammunition, we are lagging behind our target, but we are accelerating our effort. By the end of the year, we will have delivered more than 1 million artillery rounds to Ukraine and trained 60 000 Ukrainian soldiers.

HR/VP blog – Last Monday, we met in Kyiv for an informal EU Foreign Affairs Council, for the first time outside the Union and in a country at war. After a year and a half of Russia’s war of aggression, our main objective was to assure our Ukrainian partners of our full support to their fight for Ukraine’s sovereignty both financially and in terms of military equipment and training.

HR/VP Blog - Next Monday begins the UN General Assembly (UNGA) High Level Week. Peace, climate, health, debt… just when the world most needs a functioning multilateral system, confrontation is everywhere and cooperation rare. The world is becoming more multipolar but less multilateral. This week, with the other EU representatives, we will be working to reverse this trend.

HR/VP Blog - Since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, the EU has imposed 11 rounds of ever-tighter sanctions against Russia. Some people claim these sanctions have not worked. This is simply not true. Within a year, they have already limited Moscow’s options considerably causing financial strain, cutting the country from key markets and significantly degrading Russia’s industrial and technological capacity. To stop the war, we need to stay the course.

HR/VP Blog – On 24 June, we witnessed extraordinary events in Russia. At first, we decided with our G7 colleagues not to comment Prigozhin’s mutiny publicly. Now that it is over, we should draw lessons from these events. This mutiny already has significant and negative consequences for Vladimir Putin's regime. This should not lead us to slow down our support for Ukraine. On the contrary.

HR/VP Blog – What security means is constantly changing and taking on new dimensions. Security is related to threats and conflicts. And today we have both old and new types of conflicts; both visible and invisible wars. As EU, we need to see the whole board, connect the dots and act as one.

HR/VP Blog - On Tuesday, I presented with the European Commission a Joint communication on economic security to protect EU interests against the weaponisation of economic ties. It is the beginning of a process for defining a European economic security framework by building a consensus between member states and finding the right balance between the openness that we want to keep and the protection of our values and interests.

HR/VP Blog - We have often described Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a wake-up call for the EU. While our priority remains to provide Ukraine with the military support it needs to defend its sovereignty, we must also start to draw longer-term lessons for EU defence. Faced with the return of large-scale state-to-state conflict to Europe, what must our future military capabilities look like?

HR/VP Blog – When we talk about ‘sanctions’ we actually refer to ‘restrictive measures’, which is the correct legal term. They are at the heart of our strategy to pressure Russia to end its war against Ukraine. The EU’s measures have no extraterritorial effect, meaning they only apply to European entities. But we see that sometimes they are being circumvented, undermining their effectiveness. And so the debate has moved to what we should do about it. Often, the answer lies at home.

HR/VP Blog - Russia’s war against Ukraine has reunited the transatlantic alliance while exposing differences with other parts of the world. There is a risk that this divide grows and turns into hard rift. While we continue to support Ukraine, we must do more to heed the legitimate expectations of the rest of the world.

HR/VP Blog – 2022 was marked by the return of high intensity war to the European continent with the invasion of Ukraine launched by Vladimir Putin. This war and its global consequences dominates logically the yearbook that I have just published, like in previous years, bringing together several of my blog posts, op-eds and speeches published in 2022.

HR/VP Blog – Earlier this week, I hosted the first edition of the Schuman Security and Defence Forum. The idea was to have an honest discussion with our partners on how we can deepen our cooperation in a world of growing threats as the EU is taking on greater responsibilities on security and defence. More dialogue can ensure that our ‘offer’ matches the expectations and the needs of partners.