it is nice to see you. We just had a broad and wide-ranging exchange with the Prime Minister and representatives of the Ukrainian government.
The European Union will continue to support Ukraine for whatever it takes. This commitment is as strong as ever as Ukraine enters the third year of this relentless war. Total EU support to Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian aggression now amounts to more than €88 billion and we are ready to continue to provide more support.
We covered a broad range of topics. On financial support: the Ukraine Facility has now entered into force and it will provide stable and predictable financing for Ukraine for the next four years for the period 2024 to 2027, with a total amount of €50 billion.
The European Commission will provide the first payment in the context of the Facility later this month, of €4.5 billion followed by another €1.5 billion in April. The disbursements will be linked with the implementation of the Ukraine Plan, where we are working very intensively with the government.
Our military support is increasing substantially this year. In total, over the last three years, the EU and Member States collectively provided military support worth €28 billion. For this year, EU Member States are planning some €21 billion. This is based on partial information so that the actual amount will be even more.
Our collective European effort is to deliver one million artillery shells by the end of the year and we will also continue this in the coming years. We are obviously aware of the urgency of this delivery.
On the question of EU enlargement: over the last year, we took a number of historic decisions, by providing Ukraine with candidate country status and taking the decision to launch accession negotiations.
For next week, we are preparing the draft negotiating frameworks which we will then provide to the EU Member States so that they can adopt the frameworks once the remaining four reforms for accession are taken by Ukraine . There, we commend Ukraine on the good progress made already.
Moving to trade: as the Prime Minister already mentioned, the European Commission has proposed the extension of our autonomous trade measures for access of Ukrainian goods to the European market by another year, until June 2025. Just yesterday, the international trade committee of the European Parliament voted in favour of those support measures. We are now working towards a plenary vote next month, so we expect to finalise the legislative process on this next month.
We touched on a range of further topics, including sanctions against Russia, where we will continue to isolate Russia economically and politically. Now the focus is on sanctions implementation, to avoid circumvention and other possibilities for Russia to bypass sanctions.
We discussed the situation on the Ukrainian-Polish border, where we continue our very intensive engagement to normalise the situation. We will continue these discussions with the Polish authorities.
I wanted to pass a message of appreciation on this special day, 8 March, to all the extraordinary women in Ukraine, who serve in uniform, who work in government, in different sectors of the economy and also those who take care of family and children while men are fighting at the front. Thank you.
