Yesterday, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, participated in a debate in the European Parliament, and although she congratulated herself on opening a possible negotiated solution to the war, she once again insisted that Ukraine and Europe will continue to work on resolving this problem. … European Union countries must sit at the negotiating table to make any decision. He added: “There is nothing of Ukraine without Ukraine, nothing of Europe without Europe, and nothing of NATO without NATO.”
According to von der Leyen, neither forceful border adjustment nor restrictions on Ukraine’s defense capacity are acceptable to the Europeans. He added, “If we legitimize and formalize the weakening of borders today, we will open the door to more wars tomorrow, and we cannot allow that to happen.” Moreover, “Ukraine needs strong, long-term and credible security guarantees as part of a broader package to deter and deter any future attacks by Russia. It is equally clear that any peace agreement must guarantee European security in the long term.”
The vast majority of speakers who wanted to participate in the discussion supported the position held by both von der Leyen and the President of the Portuguese Council, António Costa.
But he did not reveal the next steps in the sensitive issue of using frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine. Although Economic Commissioner Valdos Dombrovskis said interest from these funds is already being used to help Ukraine, von der Leyen did not clarify when she would present a legal provision for using the bulk of Russian sovereign assets to back a loan to Ukraine, and she was met with fierce opposition at a summit last month from Bart de Wever, the prime minister of Belgium, where the funds are located. In any case, the president insisted that the EU would support Ukraine, but also said: “I cannot envision any scenario in which European taxpayers pay the bill alone.”
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