French President Emmanuel Macron will gather leaders of "major European countries" in Paris to discuss European security and the war in Ukraine.
This was confirmed by French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, but he did not specify who was meant by the “main” powers. According to The Guardian, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and the leaders of Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Poland will arrive in Paris.
The meeting will take place the day after the conclusion of the Munich Security Conference, at which US Vice President JD Vance said that Washington was considering negotiations to end the war without the participation of the Europeans.
Jean-Noel Barrot noted that “only the Ukrainians can decide to end the war, and we will support them until they make that decision. [The Ukrainians] will never stop until they are sure that the peace offered to them will be lasting” and the security guarantees will be reliable.
"Who will give guarantees? It will be the Europeans. Yes, the Europeans will be involved in the discussions [regarding the end of the war] one way or another," the minister summed up.
Europeʼs participation in the settlement of the war in Ukraine
After the US President Donald Trump reported that during a phone call with Putin they agreed to immediately begin peace talks, the foreign ministers of Ukraine, France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Poland, Germany, and the European Union stressed in a statement that Ukraine and Europe must be part of any negotiations to end the Russian-Ukrainian war.
During the Munich Security Conference, Trumpʼs special envoy Keith Kellogg said that Europe would not be physically at the negotiating table between Russia and Ukraine, but its interests would be taken into account. He added that one of the reasons why previous peace talks failed was that they involved too many countries.
The Axios publication, which revealed the details of the conversation between Zelensky and Trump, noted that the US president supported the idea of deploying European peacekeeping forces in Ukraine — this could become one of the security guarantees.
After that, the AP wrote that a group of European countries were privately working on a plan to send troops to Ukraine to help with post-war security.
The FT noted that the US has asked European countries to provide detailed proposals for the weapons, peacekeeping troops and security measures they could provide to Ukraine as part of any security guarantees. The United States wants to calculate Europeʼs willingness to defend Ukraine after a peaceful settlement, to determine the price Europe is willing to pay in exchange for participating in negotiations with Moscow.
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