His remarks were designed as a warning to Europe that it needs to ramp up its whole defence effort and prepare for the possibility that either Joe Biden will be unable to push his military assistance budget for Ukraine through Congress, or that later in the year he is defeated in a presidential election by an isolationist Donald Trump.
But Macron also argued that if Europe did step up, and helped to prevent a Russian victory, the US through Nato could no longer have a monopoly in determining future relations with Moscow.
Speaking at the Swedish defence academy alongside Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, Macron said: “This is a decisive and testing moment for Europe.
He said it would require Europe scaling up its own defence production effort so that Ukraine can be in a position to negotiate a sustainable peace
The French president praised the way the EU had responded to Russian aggression for two years, including by putting the European defence industry on a war footing, increasing spending and developing more common capacities.
“In the future when it is about the intermediate nuclear range forces treaty, when it is about deployments, when it is about arms control for today and tomorrow, when it is about designing an architecture of security, we have to be the one to decide.
The original article contains 766 words, the summary contains 220 words. Saved 71%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!