Ahead of today's US-Russia preliminary peace talks, French President Emmanuel Macron convened a summit of European leaders in Paris to discuss what defense capabilities Europe could provide to give credible guarantees to Ukraine, including an offer to grant Ukraine automatic NATO membership conditional on a Russian ceasefire breach, The Guardian writes.
The summit, organized in a Weimar+ format, included France, Germany, Poland, the UK, Italy, Spain, and Denmark.
Keith Kellogg, the US special envoy on Ukraine, briefed European leaders in Munich on the US negotiating strategy, which Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski described as unorthodox. Seeing Trump's determined moves for peace, Macron and European leaders fear that Russia may seek to create a sphere of influence similar to the situation after the Yalta Agreement that the United States signed in 1945 with Britain and the Soviet Union without involving other nations.
Gathering in Paris of pro-war European leaders
Pro-war, anti-Trump European leaders are gathering in Paris on Monday to prevent a Ukraine peace agreement from being reached, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto said is Astana.
Hungary's foreign minister highlighted:
We have been labeled as Russian propagandists and spies just because we argued for a diplomatic solution (…) Those who do not want peace are organizing in Europe. Pro-war forces are organizing in Europe. (…) They want to prevent peace in Ukraine, but we have wanted peace from the beginning. We support the US-Russia negotiations, and unlike them, we want peace in Ukraine.
Paris meeting – missed opportunities
In the context of the Paris summit, Laszlo Foldi pointed to missed opportunities.
The EU and European leaders feel bitter because they are well aware that Moscow and Washington will be deciding over their heads,
Laszlo Foldi, intelligence expert, told Magyar Nemzet.
For them, the most painful thing is that Viktor Orban was right again. The Hungarian prime minister had already tried to launch a peace process during Hungary's EU presidency last year when he went to Moscow, Washington, Brussels and Beijing as part of his peace mission, and he acted not as the Hungarian prime minister but as the representative of the EU, as the leader of the country holding the EU presidency,
Laszlo Foldi emphasized. Viktor Orban warned Europe last July that if it does not switch to a pro-peace policy before the US presidential elections, it can only do so after Donald Trump's election victory by admitting defeat and assuming political responsibility alone.
Many critics loudly condemned Orban’s peace mission back then because the pro-war Biden administration and its allies held the majority, Laszlo Foldi highlighted.
Europe missed a historic opportunity for peace—a path outlined by Orban, which Europe could have followed to avoid being excluded from the peace process,
the expert pointed out.
However, today both Washington and Moscow clearly see that there is nothing to talk about with the current European political leadership, because they continue pushing the old narrative.
The reason for the meeting convened by Macron is wounded pride and the realization that they botched it and are "now trying to scramble" to be involved in the peace process at some level.
The EU's loss of credibility in peace efforts began when they rejected Orban’s proposals. Since then, it’s been downhill, Laszlo Földi pointed out.
He argued that European leaders either do not understand or refuse to acknowledge what is in the interest of their countries and the continent.
They have acted and continue to act, representing rather strange interests against Europe’s interests, almost like paid agents.
Laszlo Foldi stressed:
Although formally excluded, these influential political forces can still obstruct the peace process until they are removed by voters. Washington and Moscow will likely agree to end the bloodshed and begin a slow negotiation process, but the frustrated European leadership will continue to hinder it.
The intelligence expert added:
Because they previously failed to recognize Europe's true interests, they now oppose them. In doing so, they prove—there’s no other way to put it—that they are traitors to their own nations,
the expert concluded.
