If Europe is to take greater responsibility for its security, it must be present at the forthcoming negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, Czech President Petr Pavel said in an interview with Czech Television yesterday.
Asked about Czech participation in today’s meeting of European leaders in Paris, the president replied that, according to his information, it would not be an unofficial summit, but a meeting of some key European leaders.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot announced yesterday that the leaders of major European countries would arrive on Monday, but he did not say which. According to European diplomats quoted by the Reuters news agency, the meeting will be attended by France, Britain, Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain and Denmark, which will represent the Baltic and Scandinavian countries.
According to the Czech President, the creation of a European armed force, as is being discussed in the context of the new arrangement, would take much longer and would also require the agreement of all countries. He said it is not clear whether it would be an army of all European states, EU countries or some other grouping.
The greater institutionalisation of the existing European pillar of NATO would be an effective and relatively quick solution, Pavel said.
“Greater autonomy for Europe in terms of defence makes sense if we build on what is already standing,” he added. NATO’s strong and sophisticated European pillar, if institutionalized, could be used for purely European operations, with or without U.S. participation. “This is a step that can be taken relatively quickly and with greater effect,” Pavel said.
The President said he understood the demands of the United States that “there should not be too many people at the table, because then the agreement will be very difficult”. But it is also in the interest of the United States that Europe’s interests are present, he added.
“If we are to take more responsibility, we must be there,” he said, referring to the U.S. demand for Europe to increase its involvement.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference this weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, said that Europeans would not be part of the planned talks between Russia, Ukraine and the United States.
According to Bloomberg news agency, top U.S. and Russian officials will meet in Saudi Arabia next week to prepare the ground for a potential summit of the presidents of the two countries to deal with the end of the war in Ukraine. The summit could take place at the end of this month.
According to the Czech President, time is limited by the beginning of Ramadan on 28 February.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who convened the talks in Paris, warned against a peace deal that would involve Ukraine surrendering, and questioned whether Russian President Vladimir Putin was sincerely prepared to conclude a permanent ceasefire to the nearly three-year war. Only President Volodymyr Zelenskiy can negotiate over peace for Ukraine, he told the Financial Times.
New U.S. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that it was “unrealistic” to expect Ukraine to return to its pre-2014 borders. After annexing Crimea in 2014, Russia launched an unprovoked attack on Ukraine on Putin’s orders in February 2022, and now claims five Ukrainian regions, which it has occupied to different degrees.
