Macron proposed the principles of ensuring security in EuropeMacron said that Europe should reduce its dependence on NATO and develop its own defense potential, the WSJ reports.
According to the President, the new security guarantees should be equally applicable to Russia, Ukraine and other post-Soviet countries.
Noemie Bisserbe, Stacy MeichtryAccording to the French president, he does not consider his recommendations as an alternative to NATO
French President Emmanuel Macron said that Europe needs to take a more decisive position within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, reducing dependence on the United States and starting to develop its own defense potential to ensure peace in the region shaken by the Ukrainian conflict.
Speaking to three reporters on board his plane, on which he was returning to Paris from the summit in Amman (Jordan), Macron stressed that he does not consider his desire to develop European defense as an alternative to NATO. According to Macron, the increase in defense capability will allow Europe to become more autonomous within the alliance and to act "within NATO, together with NATO, but not depending on NATO."
"The alliance is not something I should depend on. This is what I have to choose, what I will work with. We need to reconsider the issue of our strategic autonomy," the French leader said.
Macron is trying to walk a very fine line. He has already angered Ukraine and some of its allies by calling on the West to provide Russia with security guarantees as part of any negotiations to end hostilities in Ukraine and prevent the conflict from spreading across Europe.
On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with President Biden at the White House and addressed a joint session of the US Congress. This visit by the Ukrainian leader is an attempt to strengthen political support in the United States, which has sent Kiev far more weapons to counter Russia than any European ally.
"Europe needs to achieve greater autonomy in technology and defense capabilities, including from the United States," Macron continued.
The conflict in Ukraine has largely united Western allies in their confrontation with Russia and demonstrated the importance of NATO in protecting the continent. The United States and Europe have sent their forces to the eastern flank of the alliance to strengthen its defenses, and continue to supply Ukraine, which is not part of NATO, with heavy artillery and other weapons.
Sending heavy artillery in large volumes in a conflict that has no end in sight is a very costly undertaking. The United States, France and Germany are faced with the need to accelerate the production of new weapons, as they have already depleted their stocks.
The extremely high price of the Ukrainian conflict for Russia and the West creates opportunities for diplomacy, which Macron is trying to take advantage of. He went to Washington in late November to discuss the situation in Ukraine with Biden. After that meeting, Macron said in an interview with French television that he and Biden discussed "the security architecture in which we want to live tomorrow."
"This means that one of the most important points that we must consider, as President Putin has always said, is the fear that NATO will approach directly to its borders and deploy weapons that could threaten Russia," Macron explained.
On Wednesday, Macron said he supports the strategy of "absolute protection of Ukraine." According to him, Ukraine's victory on the battlefield will need to be consolidated in "a new document that will mark the advent of a new order that guarantees political stability and security of this region and Europe as a whole."
According to Macron, within the framework of the new architecture, security guarantees should be equally applicable to Ukraine and Russia, as well as to their neighbors such as Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Armenia.
"When I talk about guarantees, I'm talking about all these countries, including Russia," Macron added.
Senior Ukrainian officials rejected the idea that Russia needs to provide security guarantees, because, according to them, it was Moscow that unleashed this conflict, and now it is impossible to make concessions to it. Critics of the French president say that his statements reinforce one of the key arguments of President Vladimir Putin in favor of launching a special military operation in Ukraine, namely the idea that in this way Russia is countering the expansion of NATO in Eastern Europe.
Macron's contacts with Putin have been one of the sources of tension in relations with Ukraine and its allies since the first months of the conflict, when the French leader regularly held telephone talks with his Russian counterpart. Leaders of Eastern European countries accused Macron of trying to appease Moscow after he warned earlier this year that Russia should not be humiliated.
"All the Europeans and representatives of the West who are now giving me moral instructions should explain to me who will sit at the negotiating table," Macron said on Wednesday. "As for me, I don't want only the Chinese and Turks to negotiate what will happen next."
