If Russian President Vladimir Putin \u2013 who invaded Ukraine in 2022 \u2013 is not stopped, \u201che will certainly continue for Moldova and possibly beyond for Romania,\u201d Emmanuel Macron warned in interviews he gave to the French Sunday press on March 1, speaking, among other things, about the burning issue of Europe\u2019s defense armor in the face of fears of an American disengagement. The possible \u201cdisengagement\u201d of the United States from Ukraine \u201cis not in their (the US) interest,\u201d the French president stressed, because \u201cwhat the US has done in the last three years is completely in line with its diplomatic and military tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If Washington agrees to \u201csign a ceasefire without providing any security guarantees for Ukraine,\u201d then its \u201cgeostrategic deterrence capacity vis-\u00e0-vis Russia, China and others would disappear on the same day,\u201d the French president argued. Reviving the discussion of a European nuclear umbrella to strengthen Europe\u2019s security, Macron stressed that a strategic dialogue with European countries that do not possess nuclear weapons \u201cwould make France stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have a shield, they do not. And they can no longer depend on American nuclear deterrence. We need a strategic dialogue with those who do not have it, and that will make France stronger.\u201d The French leader expressed hope that European Union member states would move quickly for \u201cmassive and common funding\u201d of \u201chundreds of billions of euros\u201d to build a common defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 27 will meet in Brussels on Thursday for a summit. \u201cWe will mandate the European Commission to define the capability needs to build a common defense\u201d because \u201cwe need to mobilise common funding of hundreds of billions of euros\u201d and \u201cquickly\u201d. At the same time, he called on US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky to \u201cshow calm, respect and gratitude\u201d after yesterday\u2019s clash between the two at the White House that raised fears of a US withdrawal from Ukraine and a rupture between the Trump administration and its European allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think that beyond the irritation, everyone must return to calm, respect and gratitude, so that we can move forward concretely because what is at stake is very important.\u201d Earlier in the day, the French president had telephone conversations with a number of leaders, including Zelensky and Trump, the French presidency announced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Macron also spoke with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, European Council President Antonio Costa and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. The talks were part of preparations for a summit of European allies in Kiev in London on Sunday, as well as an emergency EU summit on March 6, according to the Elysee. Macron gave interviews to the Tribune Dimanche, JDD, Le Parisien and Ouest-France newspapers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If Russian President Vladimir Putin \u2013 who invaded Ukraine in 2022 \u2013 is not stopped, \u201che will certainly continue for Moldova and possibly beyond…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1808],"tags":[472,25,6661,474,3457,6660],"class_list":["post-23168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-defense-space","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-eu","tag-european-defense","tag-france","tag-nuclear-arsenals","tag-nuclear-umbrella"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23168"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23170,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23168\/revisions\/23170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}