The EU has been busy making announcements on defence funding and Ukraine, so it would appear that the EU wanted to do these announcements first and allow Kubilius's programme to be a footnote.
It is convenient for the EU to do it in this order as the EU would have appeared rather introspective if it had done Kubilius's mostly internally-focussed paper first or on its own at this time while Ukraine and Trump's peace talks dominate the headlines.
In the last few weeks, the EU has been running a narrative which appears focused on Ukraine even though some of its announcements are really 'internal-EU'.
(However, the difference between Ukraine-focused and EU-internal strategies are increasingly being blurred by the EU for reasons of the EU-Ukraine defence association status mentioned later).
The delay also meant that the EU could announce its €150bn SAFE defence loan instrument ahead of the Kubilius paper. This is in addition to the EU's recent announcement of its intention to create centralised military spending competencies to the sum of €800bn+ over several years. In 2025, the EU will mobilise the political levers to make this centralisation and increase happen via EU Council agreements which are scheduled throughout 2025 as part of its plan to complete the Strategic Compass initiative, AKA the completion of the EU Defence Union. (Side note: Starmer and his Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds are working very fast to hitch the UK to the EU defence mass before the bus leaves the station, so to speak.)
About the EU SAFE programme and the UK's status:
The €150bn SAFE programme is the one which attracted headlines in the UK because the UK is 'excluded'. Of course we're not specifically excluded it's just that we're a mostly independent country and could never expect to be given defence investment money from a different sovereign entity. (We wouldn't expect Japan or Brazil to give us any of their military stimulus loans so why would anyone expect the EU to do so.) (Media and observers have a mental block when it comes to the EU's status as a sovereign entity, they still think it's a trade club – and they think the EU is doing defence for practical purposes rather than political amalgamation.)
The reason Norway and Ukraine are able to participate in SAFE is because they have signed up to 'Associated' status with EU defence. (It was EU-Ukraine's 2014 agreement on this subject which directly caused Ukraine's revolution and internal fracture and was a significant factor leading to where they are now.)
About the paper:
The Kubilius 1 paper talks about a wide spectrum of capabilities, space, air defence, integration of capabilities, closer coordination between EU military staff and Ukraine. The latter point is not just to support Ukraine but to allow Ukraine to educate EU militaries "on their experience of high-intensity warfare".
The paper talks about 'building a defence union which secures peace on our continent' - this is an extension to the usual words about defence union and appears to incorporate Ukraine into the context of the defence union.
The paper also specifically talks about integrating Ukrainian defence production with the EU's defence industry.
1 Andrius Kubilius is a Lithuanian politician. He is the European Commissioner for Defence Industry and Space