An express European summit seeks a peace for Ukraine that does not give putin wings

Also the NATO general secretary, Mark RutteHe said goodbye calling Europeans to react with spending commitments. Because the lever point that threatens to break not only transatlantic ties, but also work within NATO and G7, which is equivalent to the established global order, is the US requirement that the one who wants to sit at the table Negotiation is in condition of providing media, preferably peace troops on Ukrainian territory, to guarantee in the medium and long term the fulfillment of the potential agreement that ends the war.

The participants

And the European leaders reacted yesterday as possible, with the call of an informal meeting that will take place today in Paris and that will be attended by the heads of government of France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland, Spain, Netherlands and Denmark, in addition to the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Council, António Costa, and Rutte. “The debates could then continue in other extended formats, with the aim of gathering all interested partners in peace and security in Europe,” point European diplomatic sources, rejecting that the rest of EU countries are excluding.

The Paris meeting will serve to explore any possibility of making contributions, as Trump wants, either through NATO or European armies. The Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said yesterday that “we must be careful with this term because people understand it in different ways.” “If the unification of national armies is understood, that will not happen,” he said, “but I have been a firm defender that Europe, that the European Union, develops its own defense, extensive and coordinated capacities, and already We are clearly on that path », in reference to the reinforced brigade that is already being formed in the EU.

Adhesion to the EU

In Paris, the possibility of Accelerate adhesion From Ukraine to the EU, which for example Finland considers “unnegotiable”, but that Hungary blocks with the shipment, this same weekend, of a new sheet of conditions.

The Polish semiannual presidency had presented on Friday a draft of the document that should be sent to Ukraine to open two of the six negotiation committees, in the process already underway, but but Viktor Orbán has requested a new detailed plan to protect national minorities, which will delay the start. And the idea is that the considerations that are collected at this meeting are transferred to Washington the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, who will look there with Trump this week.

“This is a unique moment in a generation for our national security in which we commit ourselves to the reality of today’s world and the threat we face by Russia,” Starmer said in Munich, “it is clear that Europe must Assume a more important role in NATO while we work with the United States to ensure the future of Ukraine and deal with the threat we face by Moscow ».

Giving them mediator, he has promised that he will work “to ensure that the United States and Europe remain united.” “We cannot allow any division in the alliance to distract us from the external enemies we face,” he concluded. British diplomatic sources underline that “we need a guarantee that, if the agreement is violated, we can act, and this will be a sufficient threat so that the Russian Federation does not violate this guarantee.”

Different vision

At the moment, however, Europe has a very different vision of what the peace process in Ukraine should be. While Trump plans a “lightning peace”, an agreement that several European diplomatic bodies qualify as “not sustainable over time,” community governments are inclined to a much more slow process, but also safer. As described in Munich, the president of Finland, Alexander Stubb, would be necessary three stages: a first to make Ukraine can go with a position of force to the negotiations, supplying weapons and mobilizing frozen Russian assets; a second phase of high fire under international supervision, and the third of negotiations, which would include reconstruction and territorial issues.

But the most worrying thing for the attendees of the Paris meeting, being Ukraine a top -line of importance, is that in the negotiation plan they are already talking about Washington and Moscow, critical decisions about the security structure of Europe are included. Europeans have known in Munich the details of these conversations through the mouth of the special envoy of the United States for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, and have been trembling. Russia demands “negotiating in complex”, which means that peace is not only on the table in Ukraine, but also the Russian influence area that aims to recover.

Putin’s notice in 2019

Already in 2019, Putin said at this same Munich Security Conference that “European security cannot be organized without Russia and much less against Russia” and that seems to be the direction that tries to print to conversations, to which Putin referred to End of January as eliminating “the fundamental causes of the conflict” in Ukraine.

The Russian government refers to the demands sent to Washington and Brussels in 2021, which foresee “security guarantees” for Russia, such as the withdrawal of American nuclear weapons in Europe and NATO’s commitment not to perform maneuvers and other military activities in a strip of width and configuration agreed along the Russian border. The three Baltic states would be deeply affected.

The attitude of the new US administration regarding these demands does not let European leaders sleep. “Putin is working on a weakening in Europe because it is proposed , it would quickly enter into a territorial expansion mode ».

Zelesnki also insists until the aphonia in the need for a unique criterion in Europe. While saying goodbye, Albanian prime minister, Edi Rama, commented that he has the impression of having seen in Munich «two Netflix series in parallel: on the one hand the American ‘One Sheriff Show’ and on the other the EU, which goes from a patient with 27 doctors ».