Official: EU needs say in Ukraine talks
Border buildup’s threat to Europe isn’t just a U.S., Russia matter, he declares
BRUSSELS — The European Union’s foreign policy chief insisted Wednesday that the 27-nation bloc must have a bigger role to play alongside Washington and Moscow to defuse the West’s standoff with Russia over Ukraine.
In the diplomatic flurry surrounding the Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s border the EU has largely been a bystander. This highlights a deeper frustration in Brussels: even though the EU is an enormous global economic powerhouse, its strategic geopolitical footprint remains disproportionately small.
“There are not two actors alone. It’s not just the U.S. and Russia,” said Josep Borrell during a visit to Ukraine on Wednesday. “If you want to talk about security in Europe, the Europeans have to be part of the table.”
Also Wednesday, the United States and Germany said Russia’s military buildup near Ukraine’s border poses an “immediate and urgent challenge” to European security and that any intervention will draw severe consequences.
But the country’s top diplomats left open what those consequences would be and how differences on arming Ukraine and a controversial Russian gas pipeline will be resolved.
So far, the EU’s plea for a bigger role has largely fallen on deaf ears.
U.S. President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have spoken twice over the past month, before two days of talks between senior U.S. and Russian officials starting Sunday in Geneva. Those talks will be followed by a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council on Jan. 12 and negotiations at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Vienna on Jan. 13.
And on Friday, NATO’s 30 foreign ministers will already set the scene for those encounters. The EU is involved in none of them.
Borrell stressed that this had to change. “If Russia is really willing to talk about the security in Europe, then Europeans have to be part of it. Not the first day,” he acknowledged. “But that is not going to last just one day or one week.”
He said EU foreign ministers would assess next week in Brest, France, how to get the EU’s foot in the door.
“We are going to discuss the way in which we are going to have our say in these talks through coordination with the U.S. and possibly with the Russians,” Borrell said. “Like it or not, they will have to talk with us. Be sure of that.”
The United States has assured its European allies that it would not do any side deals with Putin without them, and they have walked in lockstep laying out the threat of prohibitive sanctions in the event of a Russian invasion.
“We’re not going to talk above the heads of our European allies and partners. Throughout all of this, it will remain true that we will do or say nothing about them without them when it comes to our NATO allies and our European partners,” State Department spokesman Ned Price has said.
After their meeting in Washington on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock sought to present a unified front on Russia.
“Both Germany and the United States see Russia’s actions toward Ukraine as an immediate and urgent challenge to peace and stability in Europe,” Blinken said.
“We condemn Russia’s military buildup on Ukraine’s borders, as well as Russia’s increasingly harsh rhetoric as it continues to push the false narrative that Ukraine seeks to provoke [Russia],” he said. “That’s a little bit like the fox saying it had no choice but to attack the henhouse because somehow the hens presented a threat.”
Baerbock agreed. “We jointly reiterated that Russian actions and activities come with a clear price tag, and a renewed violation of Ukrainian sovereignty by Russia would have severe consequences,” she said.
Since the Crimean Peninsula’s annexation by Russia and the Kremlin’s backing of a separatist rebellion in Ukraine’s east, the fighting has killed more than 14,000 people and devastated the country’s industrial heartland, known as the Donbas.
For years now, the EU has championed the principles of diplomacy’s so-called soft power of economic and non-military aid, since it lacked the political wherewithal to build up a powerful defense and security part in its common project. So far, it has yet to emerge as an essential player, even on its own continent.
Since the 2014 invasion of Crimea, European diplomacy has been spearheaded by the so-called Normandy format, bringing together Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany. The Minsk agreements that came out of it remain one of the best avenues for a fundamental solution.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Wednesday that France’s “efforts alongside Germany to achieve that remain total and will continue in the coming days and weeks.”