European officials are working on a major new package to ramp up defense spending and support Kyiv as President Donald Trump pushes for a quick end to the war in Ukraine.

The spending plans won’t be announced until after the German election on Feb. 23 in order to avoid stirring up controversy before the vote, according to officials briefed on the plans.

A handful of EU leaders has been invited to Paris Monday to start drawing up their response after U.S. officials spelled out in stark terms that there is a limit to how much the U.S. is prepared to do.

European leaders have been charged with reviving the continent’s military power after almost 80 years in which they essentially outsourced much of their security to the U.S.

Trump’s return to the White House has fundamentally changed the transatlantic relationship, and U.S. officials have made clear the president is willing to let the Europeans reap the consequences if they refuse to take responsibility for their own security.

“The overall consensus was that the United States was no longer going to foot the bill for NATO security,” Republican Congressman Michael McCaul said in an interview, reflecting on discussions at the Munich Security Conference. “Our European allies recognize that it is time for them to step up to the plate in their own back yard.”

The situation is urgent because Trump is racing ahead with efforts to end the war in Ukraine and European officials are worried that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could be pushed into a disastrous deal unless they can quickly come up with a plan to give him military backup.

The Trump administration has told European officials that it wants to secure a ceasefire in Ukraine by Easter, according to people briefed on the conversations. Some officials said the pace of the talks, which begin this week in Saudi Arabia with top U.S. and Russian officials, is ambitious and potentially unrealistic.

Getting a resolution by the end of this year is much more likely, one person said while adding they remain in a wait-and-see mode. A spokesman for the White House National Security Council didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump began his peace initiative with a call to Vladimir Putin last week and shocked European officials when his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said they will be responsible for the security guarantees and peacekeeping troops that will be required to keep Ukraine safe after a deal.

“It looks a bit like appeasement from here,” Christoph Heusgen, chair of the conference, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Oliver Crook.

The U.S. strategy risks playing into Putin’s hands because Trump has given away significant leverage before the negotiations have begun. “He smells weakness,” Heusgen said, reflecting on his dealings with the Russian president as an adviser to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “I think what he is smelling now is something he likes.”

French President Emmanuel Macron will host his counterparts from Germany, the U.K., Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark Monday to discuss their response, along with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. The talks will be focused on Ukraine and what kind of security guarantees European nations could agree on immediately so that Europe is not left out of Trump’s negotiations, according to one official briefed on the preparations.

In Munich, Rutte said that the European proposal would focus on military training, speeding up aid, weapons deliveries and what Europe can offer for security guarantees.

“We will launch a large package that has never been seen in this dimension before,” Baerbock said in an interview on the sidelines of the Munich gathering. “Similar to the euro or the corona crisis, there is now a financial package for security in Europe. That will come in the near future.”

Officials in France and Britain also expect to discuss how willing leaders are to tell the U.S. that they are prepared to send peacekeeping troops into Ukraine as part of a deal. Such an offer is likely to be part of a proposal on European security guarantees even if some countries are reluctant and would be excellent leverage with the U.S., one of them said.

Another European official played down expectations for the meeting, which takes place less than a week before a general election in Germany. The aim is to prepare the ground for an agreement at a full EU leaders’ summit in Brussels in March.

Part of the calculation may be to avoid handing ammunition to the far-right Alternative for Germany ahead of the vote — the AfD has been opposed to military aid for Ukraine and portrayed itself as the party of peace.

All the same, Macron’s decision to convene a small group of leaders irritated some of his colleagues.

“I don’t know exactly what the topic of that meeting in Paris is, because very few countries will attend it, but what is necessary is that we have a united vision,” Luxembourg Prime Minister Luc Frieden told Stephanie Flanders, head of economics and government at Bloomberg, during a panel discussion in Munich Sunday. “It’s much better that we meet the 27.”

Another potential source of funding would be $300 billion of frozen Russian assets that are held mainly across a number of European countries.

The topic of seizing those assets was a central discussion point in Munich, with U.S. officials making clear to their European counterparts that Congress won’t be approving any more supplemental aid packages for Ukraine.

Some European countries, including Germany, have been opposed to seizing those assets out of concern that such a move could damage the single currency. But others have suggested they have legal mechanisms to do it.

Asked about NBC News reporting that the Trump administration would convene separate meetings with Russia and Ukraine before all sides come to the negotiating table together, a White House official said that the Trump team has consistently engaged with its Ukrainian counterparts, citing high-level meetings in Munich and Kyiv over the past week.

Despite Vice President JD Vance’s shocking attack on European governments on Friday, U.S. officials underlined that they had sent a large and high-level delegation to Munich and that should be taken as a sign that the U.S. is not abandoning Europe.

U.S. officials said they thought that European officials have heard the wake-up call and those member states that have been reluctant to boost defense spending are starting to come under pressure to shift.

“They are throwing out things that are extremely harmful for Ukraine, and Europe, and the transatlantic alliance,” said Katarzyna Pisarska, chair of the Warsaw Security Forum. “Europeans come out of here shaken, understanding that they need to diversify, first of all by investing in their own defense.”

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(With assistance from Andra Timu, Ellen Milligan and Michael Nienaber.)

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