European Union leaders tussled over weapons deliveries to Kyiv and who would represent them in U.S.-led diplomacy as the bloc struggled to formulate a strategy on Ukraine.

An EU summit in Brussels was unable to agree on delivering €5 billion ($5.4 billion) to secure ammunition for Ukraine this year, as members including France and Italy balked at committing to specific financial volumes, according to European diplomats familiar with the talks. A number of European leaders will meet again in Paris on March 27 to try to drive the process forward.

“The objective for me on Thursday is first of all for there to be a renewed and explicit commitment, and perhaps one that is a little more specific, on short-term support for Ukraine,” French President Emmanuel Macron said late Thursday as leaders filed out.

Leaders have become increasingly alarmed about being kept out of U.S. President Donald Trump’s dealing with the Kremlin — and the risk of being unable to agree on how to help Ukraine defend itself. During the summit, they pored over the sequence of Trump’s phone diplomacy this week, which yielded an agreement to halt attacks on energy infrastructure — but fell well short of a ceasefire aimed at ending the three-year war.

EU leaders also sparred over the failure so far to put forward a senior figure as part of a bid to gain entry into the process and represent the 27-member bloc. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the EU needed a “negotiating team and a representative” to be at the table.

Tensions led to a heated exchange between Sanchez and the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas. When the Spanish leader repeated his call for a special envoy in the closed-door meeting, Kallas took offense.

“What am I here for?” she said, according to accounts of multiple people briefed on the discussion.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meanwhile made an urgent plea for the €5 billion to purchase ammunition “as soon as possible,” making reference to a massive overnight drone strike over Ukraine as the war drags on.

“It’s crucial that your support for Ukraine doesn’t decrease but instead continues and grows,” Zelenskyy said, according to a text of the speech. “And this is especially true for air defense, military aid, and our overall resilience.”

With Trump pushing for a ceasefire, Putin has made it clear he wants a halt in arms deliveries to Ukraine in any broader deal, which further complicates the EU’s push to bolster Kyiv.

Next week’s Paris meeting will address Europe’s position and demands on the peace process, according to people familiar with the plans. Germany, Italy and Poland will be some of the EU countries involved, as well as non-EU nations such as the U.K. and Canada, said the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations.

“Russia does not sincerely want peace at this stage,” Macron said, lamenting President Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to a ceasefire, one that he hopes is a “temporary refusal.”

Kallas put forward a proposal earlier this year for EU members to deliver as much as €40 billion in military aid in 2025, stepping up after €20 billion flowed to Kyiv in 2024. Assistance would be voluntary, but participants would be encouraged to make contributions in cash or equipment in proportion to their respective economies.

After several countries demurred, the debate was narrowed to focus this week on the ammunition component.

Italy and other nations are asking for more technical and financial details, and said the initiative was still being worked on, Italian diplomats said. French diplomats said that while they share the objectives of the effort, the priority is to implement the EU’s €18 billion portion of a Group of Seven loan package for Kyiv.

A spokesperson for the EU said the bloc doesn’t comment on closed meetings. A Spanish official said Madrid wasn’t ruling Kallas out and declined to comment on the summit discussions.

Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo threw his weight behind the initiative — and lamented the headwinds it faced from some EU capitals. Many countries are not “performing adequately” when it comes to arms deliveries to Ukraine, he said.

Still, others faulted the sequence of prematurely quantifying member states’ commitments before first securing backing. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said setting numbers first “was done backwards.”

“It may create an impression that someone doesn’t do enough — but readiness to support Ukraine is there, even if it is difficult to quantify it now,” Nauseda told reporters.

The EU and its member states have dispatched €50 billion in military support to Ukraine since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022. The U.S. has committed $66.5 billion — or about €11 billion more — in that time frame.

Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orban maintained its resistance to helping Ukraine. But efforts to win over Orban for an agreement of all 27 states — a familiar set piece for summits — were dropped. For the second straight meeting, leaders were resigned to move ahead without Budapest.

(Donato Paolo Mancini, Daniel Basteiro, Alberto Nardelli, Milda Seputyte, Michal Kubala and Michael Nienaber contributed to this report.)

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