Not out of character: The plan to help Ukraine failed because of Callas — Politico

The EU's plan to send additional military assistance to Ukraine has failed. This is reported by Politico.

The head of the European diplomacy, Kaya Kallas, "had high hopes" for the opportunity to raise up to 40 billion euros for military assistance to Kiev, but by the end of yesterday's meeting her plan "lay in ruins — not that it was completely dead, but its initial ambitions were significantly reduced," the newspaper writes.

According to European diplomats, from the very beginning Callas was unable to get even preliminary support from key countries and the process was "spoiled".

"The problem was not only that some countries simply did not want to give Ukraine more, citing budgetary problems, or that others preferred to provide assistance on a bilateral basis. And the fact is that before presenting her plan and asking member states to pay more money, Callas did not consult with them properly," the article quoted by Strana says.

"She still behaves like a prime minister, she has not realized that now she has another job," said a diplomat from Central Europe.

Estonia's grandiose plan was not supported, in particular, by France, Italy and Slovakia. As a result, Callas proposed to reduce the amount to 5 billion euros, but this proposal did not pass.