What if the war in Ukraine were to see a shift towards peace in the coming months? This is in any case what German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hopes, who said in an interview on September 8 that “it is now time to discuss how we can get out of this war situation and achieve peace more quickly than the current circumstances suggest. And it is true, it is important that we make progress.”
“Negotiating a just and lasting peace”
The German Chancellor is following in the footsteps of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has called on Russia to participate in the international peace summit he plans to organize in November. “We must negotiate peace, but not a peace of submission or defeat,” said Tobias Cremer, a German MEP, social democrat and professional diplomat, interviewed on the program Ici l’Europe, on France 24 and Public Sénat. “Ukraine is ready to negotiate peace, but Russia is not, so we must show it that it cannot win this war, and that it is in Russia’s interest to begin these talks.”
For General Christophe Gomart, elected MEP on the LR list last June, “the objective must be to continue to support Ukraine in this war so that it arrives in a favourable balance of power to negotiate a just and lasting peace.”
Towards an escalation of the conflict?
While some are calling for an acceleration of the peace dialogue, on the ground, there is nevertheless a fear of an escalation of the conflict. The United States announced this week that it is considering authorizing kyiv to use American long-range missiles to bomb Russian territory. A response to Russia, which is renewing its arsenal by importing Iranian ballistic missiles.
At the risk of fuelling the escalation, should the European Union support the Ukrainian army’s strategy of extending the conflict to Russian territory, as it did this summer by taking control of more than 1,000 km2 in the Kursk region of Russia? “If the United States is going in this direction, we must support them,” says the German MEP. “Last July, the European Parliament voted on a resolution calling for Ukraine to be allowed to strike Russian military bases that are participating in the conflict.”
“Using long-range missiles allows us to hit targets 800 km away, between Lille and Marseille,” says Christophe Gomart. “But on the scale of Russian territory, these missiles will not reach Moscow. At best, it will just push back the Russian logistics line,” says the former director of French military intelligence, who also doubts Europe’s ability to supply ammunition to the Ukrainians. “We promised 1 million shells, but we have barely supplied 300,000. We must continue to revive the European defense industry.”
“Ukraine is not ready to join the European Union”
In the midst of a war with Russia, Ukraine is campaigning to join the European Union. Volodymyr Zelensky, who was alongside Italian leader Giorgia Meloni in Cernobbio on September 7, recalled why his country’s membership in the European club remains vital for Europe. “Ukraine must be a full member of the European Union, of the European family and of NATO. What does that bring us? It means that aggression by Russia or anyone else cannot happen again.” A membership that is not unanimous within the EU. “Ukraine is not ready for immediate membership because it does not meet all the criteria, particularly in the fight against corruption… We must not make false promises to it,” believes Christophe Gomart.
The war in Ukraine is occupying this European back-to-school period and the speech by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Wednesday 18 September for the back-to-school plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg will be worth listening to carefully. Hungary, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, has often shown itself reluctant to help Ukraine and to its accession to the European Union. Last July, having just arrived at the head of the Council of the EU, Viktor Orban went to Moscow, on his own initiative, to discuss the future of this conflict with Vladimir Putin. Which did not fail to irritate all his European partners…
