Emmanuel Macron insists on the need to provide “security guarantees” to Ukraine, but this stance towards Russia at the end of the Ukrainian conflict has earned him heavy criticism in Kyiv and Eastern Europe.
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LIn an interview with several media outlets, French President Emmanuel Macron believes that Russia will experience Ukraine’s entry into NATO as a conflict and not “mostly a situation.”
“Ukraine’s entry into NATO will be perceived as a confrontation by Russia. You cannot imagine this Russia,” he declared on Wednesday to French daily newspapers Le Monde, American Wall Street Journal and Lebanese An Nahar.
“Whether or not Ukraine joins NATO – which is not the most likely scenario – it will have to provide very strong security guarantees since it was attacked by Russia,” he continues.
Emmanuel Macron insists on the need to provide “security guarantees” to Ukraine, but this stance towards Russia at the end of the Ukrainian conflict has earned him heavy criticism in Kyiv and Eastern Europe.
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“In the end, we have to get everyone around the table. So all the Europeans and Westerners who give me moral lessons explain to me who they sit around the table with,” he said.
“I don’t want only the Chinese and the Turks to hold talks the next day,” he said, specifically referring to Turkish diplomacy’s mediation efforts.
The French president also appealed again for Europe’s strategic autonomy within NATO, but not dependence on the United States.
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“There is no European security architecture without NATO and strategic autonomy within NATO, but not dependent on NATO”, he underlined.
“A coalition is not something I depend on, it’s something I choose (…) We need to rethink our strategic autonomy,” he asserted.
“Europe must gain technological and technical autonomy, including the United States”, the French president stressed.
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