The President of France Emmanuel Macron will come to Berlin on Friday to meet with the Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz. They want to reduce tensions around Ukraine.
Politico writes about this with reference to sources.
The Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk will join the meeting a little later. This meeting will be the first in the "Weimar Triangle" format, which should become a method of strengthening European security.
The meeting of the leaders of Germany, France and Poland should demonstrate the unity of the countries after a tense period when the German and French sides argued over the war in Ukraine.
Tensions rose in late February when Emmanuel Macron refused to rule out sending Western troops to Ukraine, while Olaf Scholz ruled it out.
Politico notes that a few days later, the French president appears to have bluntly told the German chancellor that "Europe is clearly facing a moment of not being cowards."
Meanwhile, German officials privately complain that while Macron has been tough on Russiaʼs invasion of Ukraine, his country has not provided as much military support as Germany.
The Kiel Institute for World Economics in Germany shows that France has provided €640 million in military aid, while German aid amounts to €17.7 billion (already given and promised).
At the same time, the French deny these figures and say that they provide really important weapons.
"France has chosen the operational effectiveness of its military aid to Ukraine: promise what we can deliver, fulfill what we can promise," French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu wrote the other day.
What preceded
Following the meeting of European leaders in Paris on February 26, French President Emmanuel Macron said that he does not rule out the possibility of sending ground troops to Ukraine to support it in the war with Russia.
"Today there is no consensus on the sending ground troops, but nothing can be excluded. We will do everything in our power so that Russia does not win," Macron said at the time.
The president refused to specify which countries allow the possibility of sending troops, but noted that it is important to maintain some "strategic ambiguity." His statement provoked a series of questions to the leaders of NATO countries from journalists. After that, NATO allies, in particular the United States and Germany, began to say that they did not plan to send troops.
Macron later said in comments to journalists that all his comments on Ukraine were "carefully measured".
"These are sufficiently serious issues; every one of the words that I say on this issue is weighed, thought through and measured," Macron told reporters. He refused further comments.