“Europe must prepare for all scenarios”. A “concerned” and “pessimistic” French President Emmanuel Macron said this today before an informal summit with European heads of state or government in Versailles.
Read everything about the war in Ukraine in this file.
Macron, together with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, spoke again earlier in the day with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the invasion of Ukraine. “There won’t be a solution for the next few hours or days,” Macron said. The Russian conditions are “not acceptable”, he said. Still, the president keeps lines with the Kremlin open. “We will speak again with Putin in the next few hours.”
The Russian bombing of a maternity center in Mariupol has been described by Macron as an “unworthy and amoral act of war”. “This is not an act of war aimed at neutralizing military bases or capabilities (…) but an act of war whose objective is manifestly the killing of civilians,” Macron said.
The war strengthens Macron’s view that Europe must become more sovereign and independent on the world stage. “We need to become independent from Russian gas, to become independent to ensure our own defence, to become independent in terms of market supply.” “Europe has changed during the corona pandemic and will change even faster in this war,” he says.
The question is how quickly Europe can break away from Russian gas. Latvian President Krisjanis Karins called for an immediate cessation of imports upon his arrival, but Scholz immediately put the brakes on. “We need to ensure that the impact on us in Europe is kept as minimal as possible,” the chancellor said.
Germany is also not in favor of a new fund, in which the EU, as with the corona recovery plan of 800 billion euros, would borrow money from the capital markets to help member states to absorb the economic shocks of the war. France is promoting the idea, and Italy is also offering plenty of support. “Italy and France are completely on the same page,” Prime Minister Mario Draghi confirmed.
“The West must realize that Russia is an enemy and act accordingly,” says the first Foreign Minister Russia had after the Soviet Union (+)
Russian troops show ‘reckless disregard’ for Ukrainian civilians
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