{"id":418957,"date":"2025-02-17T20:12:49","date_gmt":"2025-02-17T19:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/02\/17\/ucraina-vertice-ue-parigi-negoziati-usa\/"},"modified":"2025-02-18T11:15:50","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T10:15:50","slug":"ukraine-eu-leaders-summit-in-paris-last-resort-before-trump-putin-negotiations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/02\/17\/ukraine-eu-leaders-summit-in-paris-last-resort-before-trump-putin-negotiations\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine: EU leaders’ summit in Paris, last resort before Trump-Putin negotiations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Almost nothing leaked out from the European summit at the Elysee Palace, convened by Emmanuel Macron to\u00a0draw an immediate response to the announced<\/a> negotiations between Trump and Putin<\/strong>.\u00a0Though in a restricted format, there seem to be too many opinions, at least on the most crucial point: the security guarantees on the table for Ukraine. While\u00a0British Prime Minister\u00a0Keir Starmer<\/strong> said he was ready to deploy British soldiers for peacekeeping, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz <\/strong>branded the issue as “inappropriate and speculative” for now. And Polish Premier\u00a0Donald Tusk<\/strong> made it clear in the morning that Warsaw would not send its troops to Ukraine.<\/p>\n

On this premise, just ahead of the meeting in Riyadh between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Macron’s attempt to overcome<\/a> the ballast of\u00a0unanimity of the 27 member states risks failing. Just think\u00a0that the heads of state and government of France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, and Denmark<\/strong>, along with the NATO secretary general and the heads of European institutions, met in Paris to\u00a0signal\u00a0strength. Antonio Costa<\/strong>, president of the European Council, aware of the criticism that has come for the exclusion of most member countries – criticism also leaked by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni – was quick to clarify that the summit is “the beginning of a process that will continue with the involvement of all partners committed to peace and security in Europe.”<\/p>\n

The EU is guilty of being late\u00a0in the face of the long-anticipated acceleration by Donald Trump. It exposes itself to those – like\u00a0Viktor Orb\u00e1n’s Hungary – who, through spokesman Bal\u00e1zs Orb\u00e1n, speak of a “losers’ club”<\/strong> in Paris and mock\u00a0“pro-war European leaders” who “should respond to the US-initiated peace talks, set to begin despite EU opposition.” Kyiv itself is calling for breaking the deadlock: according to Bloomberg reports, the deputy head of Volodymyr Zelensky’s office said that the EU should\u00a0quickly appoint a representative<\/strong> to avoid not being part of the peace talks. “The decision\u00a0should be\u00a0made quickly,” he said, “hopefully right after the Paris meeting. We should act, not reflect.”<\/p>\n

For now, perhaps the best news comes from the US envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg<\/strong>, who, in an\u00a0interview<\/a> at NATO headquarters in Brussels, reportedly reassured Secretary-General Mark Rutte<\/strong> by stating that “no one will impose a pre-packaged agreement on the elected leader of a sovereign nation” and that “the ultimate decision on Ukraine’s future remains with Ukraine.” Kellogg will meet with Ursula von der Leyen<\/strong> tomorrow and will be in Kyiv on Thursday. The European Commission president, in a message on X, called for leaders convened for “crucial talks” in Paris to adopt “a mindset of urgency.”<\/p>\n

<\/a>
Emmanuel Macron and\u00a0Olaf Scholz at the Paris summit (Photo by Ludovic MARIN \/ AFP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, the statements of\u00a0the first leader to leave the Elys\u00e9e Palace, German Chancellor Scholz, reflect the image of a Europe that is still far from finding a solution, standing firm on the sacrosanct “non-negotiable” principles already widely shared in three years of conflict. “No\u00a0dictate can be imposed on Ukraine,” Scholz said, adding that the eight states present are “united in the idea that Ukraine should have an army<\/strong>” and that there should be no question regarding the\u00a0path to EU membership. Asked about the possibility of deploying a European peace-keeping<\/em> force in Ukraine in the face of US disengagement, Scholz said he was “a little annoyed\u00a0by this debate” because it was “inappropriate” and “totally premature<\/strong> at this stage.”<\/p>\n

Tusk, on the other hand, left no room for interpretation either, dumping the hot potato on the allies: “We have no intention of sending Polish soldiers<\/strong> into the territory of Ukraine. However,\u00a0we will support, including in terms of logistics and political support, those countries that are willing to provide such physical guarantees for Ukraine in the future,” he made clear before departing for Paris. The Polish premier, a fervent Atlanticist, also ruled out the possibility of “building an alternative to NATO,” pointing out that “there is no doubt that the real guarantees of security and border stability for Ukraine must come from the cooperation of all of Europe, the United States and within the framework of NATO.”<\/p>\n

According to a Washington Post\u00a0report<\/a>,\u00a0a skeleton of a European plan to submit to the White House reportedly exists. It would be a sort of “deterrence force,” between 25 and 30 thousand troops, <\/strong>which would not be deployed along the line of conflict but “ready to intervene” if Moscow reopened hostilities. However, the European contingents would have to be supported by US intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities – and with eventual air cover.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prior to the restricted summit with France, Germany, UK, Italy, Poland, Spain, Denmark, and the Netherlands, Macron reportedly spoke for about 20 minutes on the phone with Trump. Tusk rules out sending Polish soldiers for peace keeping. Scholz stalls: “Totally premature”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7527,"featured_media":418939,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[25747,26411,26260,25789,30501],"class_list":["post-418957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-emmanuel-macron-en","tag-ukrainian-en-2","tag-vertice-leader-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418957"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":418978,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418957\/revisions\/418978"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}