A Coalition of the Willing From European countries comes with its own plan for a peace agreement in Ukraine. That club of countries is going to come to a peace file, and together also help Ukraine to monitor the conditions of such an agreement along the border with Russia. The United Kingdom and France coordinate this collaboration.
How many countries participate in that coalition, and which exactly, that was not immediately known on Sunday after an international top of government leaders in the British capital London. But Europe must now take action, the host, Prime Minister Keir Starmer (Labor): “Not every country will feel able to contribute, but that cannot mean that we lean back. Instead, those who are willing will intensify their schedule. ”
It was the second time that a group of government leaders met, on an ad hoc basis, since the US President Donald Trump announced that the US and Russia would start with peace talks about the war in Ukraine. Two weeks ago it was in Paris, this time it became London. Now the group was greater than just European leaders: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan were also there. The argument between Trump and the Ukrainian President Zensky, last week in the White House, the urgency for decisive European action only increased.
Historical context
The leaders spoke to each other in Lancaster House, a nineteenth-century residence near Buckingham Palace, where the British government received government leaders shortly after the Second World War to negotiate the future of Germany. And where in 1950 a group of foreign ministers met to further develop the conditions of the Military Society NATO. That historical context will not have escaped government leaders, at their meeting table among chandeliers and between marble walls.
Outside there were traditional British guards with fur hats. Chic purple banners hung on the historic columns, with the motto of the top in white letters: Securing Our Future. “Saving our future.”
Despite that official appearance, there was no joint final statement. For that, the group present formed too large a mishmash. And it would exclude other countries that have major interests in the region, but were not among them. Prime Minister Starmer apologized afterwards to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that they were not invited.
Such a loose connection means that there is no obvious official or diplomatic support for the cooperating countries. But politically, such a new connection can also be an advantage and make faster mutual agreements possible. Unlike, for example, the European Union: Thursday there is a inserted top of the European Council in Brussels, where EU leaders also want to make agreements about higher defense expenditure and more support for Ukraine. Only all EU members have to agree with agreements, and Hungary is bothering. Pro-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wrote according to The Financial Times Last weekend in a letter to the chairman of the European Council that he “sees strategic differences” in the approach of Ukraine that “cannot be bridged”.
The Netherlands is also participating
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said after the meeting that France and the UK are now going to make an inventory of what is needed to be able to offer Ukraine military security for a peace file. “What would such a warranty look like and does it yield sufficient deterrence? Then it is checked whether the items are also present, such as tank aircraft or intelligence“Said Schoof. The Dutch Ministry of Defense helps in that inventory, he said. On any additional Dutch editions to Defense, Schoof did not want to anticipate.
Extra special at the top in London was that nasty relationships between the UK and the EU, during the negotiations on the British retirement of the EU, forgot. Starmer now has a pioneering role together with French President Macron. Starmer also announced on Sunday that the UK will again make more money available to Ukraine, for air target missiles that will be produced in Belfast in Northern Irish. The UK would like to set a good example.
How does the work relate to such Coalition of the Willing to the current peace talks between the US and Russia? Starmer suggested Sunday that President Trump can agree with this method: “This plan is based on collaboration with the US and it will have American support. That is the goal and that is why I called Trump before we developed this further. ”
The condition that starmer and other European leaders always set a peace agreement, namely that the US must offer a military safety net so that Russia will not venture to violate the agreements of the agreement, now seems to have less priority. There also Mark Rutte referred to NATO Secretary-General, after the top: “The Americans say rightly, hey, you talk about maintaining a ceasefire, but we have to get there first.”