Macron held talks with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who has already floated the idea of sending Dutch F-16s.
“There’s no taboo, but it would be a big step,” Rutte said.
However, Poland—the logistical center of Western efforts to pro-Ukraine as a logistics center and arms supplier—has indicated that the eventual shipment of F-16 fighter jets is not under discussion.
“At the moment, there are no official talks about the transfer of Polish F-16s” to Ukraine, Wojciech Skurkiewicz, Poland’s deputy defense minister, told AFP on Tuesday. “The topic doesn’t exist,” he insisted.
Poland possesses 48 US-made F-16 fighter jets.
On Monday, the head of the Polish government, Mateusz Moraweiecki, had indicated: “all our actions to strengthen the Ukrainian defense forces are coordinated with our NATO partners.”
On the contrary, others do say they are willing to deliver planes, such as Slovakia, which has Soviet Mig-29s, and the Netherlands, which has begun to replace its fleet of F-16s with F-35s.
With information from AFP and EFE
