European Parliament President Roberta Metzola is calling on EU member states to supply Ukraine with tanks and “accelerate” the country’s accession to the Union, in an interview with AFP on Wednesday ahead of the twenty-seven-nation summit.

The Maltese official intends to convey these messages on Friday in Prague during the meeting of the European Council.

“Ukrainians need weapons to (continue) to recover their territory (…), for example Leopard 2 tanks, which several member states have,” Metzola said in this interview on the sidelines of a plenary session in Strasbourg.

The official from the European People’s Party (EPP, right) was the first president of a European institution to visit Ukraine since the start of the war with Russia during a trip to Kyiv on April 1.

Western countries, especially the EU, supply Ukraine with weapons and military equipment, but Kyiv demands more, in particular, it asks Berlin to supply Leopard 2 tanks. These German-designed battle tanks are benchmarks in terms of armor and maneuverability.

But this request was not answered by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who wants such a decision to be made after consultations with Western allies.

About 2,000 of these tanks belong to Germany, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and outside the EU, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey, according to an EU official.

According to Metsola, European countries willing to provide these tanks can be reimbursed from common funds, such as the European Peace Fund, so that the effort is shared by all and does not “disproportionately” affect some countries.

EU countries have already allocated 2.5 billion euros to this intergovernmental fund to provide Ukraine with weapons.

“I think these are discussions that we need to have now, especially as we see escalation from Russia and, on the other hand, as we see Ukraine successfully push back the Russians,” she commented.

Roberta Metzola believes that Ukraine’s accession to the EU should be accelerated

Given the fact that Ukraine received the status of a candidate for the EU in June, four months after the start of the war with Russia, the President of the European Parliament considers it necessary to “accelerate” the country’s accession procedure.

Such a process is typically long and arduous, and she declined to comment on the integration deadline.

But “we have a country that has shown us its great desire to join us, which is to achieve goals that would take other countries months or years to achieve,” Ms Metzola said.

She said that Ukraine has made “significant progress” in bringing national legislation into line with EU legislation, and the European Parliament offers its assistance in this area.

The official added that we should not “forget” Moldova, which received candidate status at the same time as Ukraine.

While the accession process for Western Balkan countries has been going on for years, Metsola called for “more meetings and discussions” with these countries to prevent them from “looking elsewhere” and “finding partners less than trustworthy.”

The leaders of these countries are among 44 heads of state or government who will gather in Prague on Thursday for the first Prague meeting of the “European Political Community”, the brainchild of French President Emmanuel Macron.

Roberta Metzola emphasized that this forum, “of course, does not replace the EU enlargement process” and that “it is not about putting the countries that left the EU (the United Kingdom, ed.) on the same level as others that trying to join”.