BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The heads of state and government of the European Union must agree on Thursday on the main strategic lines and validate the identity of the bloc’s senior officials for the next five years, with particular attention to defense issues to help Ukraine defeat Russia.
The Twenty-Seven plan to open their two-day summit in Brussels on Thursday with the signing of a security agreement concluded with Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky to show EU support for Kyiv in its war against Moscow , entering its third year.
According to a draft summit communiqué, European leaders will reaffirm their desire to support Ukraine for as long as necessary, emphasizing once again that “Russia must not prevail” and that Kyiv must recover the territories occupied by Moscow.
They must also ask the European executive to work on a 50 billion euro loan project to Ukraine financed by revenues generated by the assets of the Russian central bank frozen by the West as part of the sanctions imposed against Russia for the invasion launched in February 2022.
The war has highlighted the EU’s lack of preparedness to deal with a conflict, while Brussels is struggling to deliver enough weapons quickly to Kyiv in its fight against the Russian offensive. There have been calls for greater European coordination in defence matters, particularly in the financing of this industry.
Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia called on Wednesday for the EU to set up a defense line along the bloc’s border with Russia and Moscow’s ally Belarus to protect the EU from any Russian military threats and malicious activities.
Investment in the defense sector is expected to feature in the EU’s strategic agenda, which European leaders are expected to agree on at the summit. The document sets the priorities of the European institutions for a period of five years.
In addition to defense, the draft strategic program, which Reuters was able to consult, calls for strengthening the competitiveness of the EU to better cope with economic pressure from China and the United States, but also to prepare the bloc for enlargement. with expected entries from Ukraine, Moldova and the Balkan countries.
The document traditionally serves as a roadmap for the European Commission. The Twenty-Seven should once again appoint Ursula von der Leyen as president of the European executive, for a second consecutive term.
Negotiations on key EU positions between the different political forces in the European Parliament have resulted in an agreement for former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa to become President of the European Council. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas is to be named head of diplomacy of the bloc.
However, it is not excluded that headwinds will blow during the summit, the President of the Italian Council Giorgia Meloni and the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban having criticized the agreement sealed by the center-right, the center-left and the liberals of the Parliament of Strasbourg.
(Jan Strupczewski, with contributions from Kate Abnett, Julia Payne and Phil Blenkinsop in Brussels, John Irish and Michel Rose in Paris, Thomas Escritt in Berlin; French version Jean Terzian; Editing by Deepa Babington)
par Jan Strupczewski et Andrew Gray
