Versailles, France, March 10 (dpa) – German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and French President Emmanuel Macron, urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine on Thursday, just hours before the start of an EU leaders’ summit in Versailles.
In an hour-long phone call with the Kremlin leader, the leaders of Germany and France said any solution to the Russian attack on Ukraine must come through diplomatic negotiations.
The EU’s 27 heads of state are coming together, after a frantic two weeks of supplying arms, sheltering nearly 2 million people and signing off on three rounds of massive sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s hopes for quick entry to the European Union were dealt a fresh blow earlier in the day when an EU diplomat forcefully pushed back on any suggestion that EU leaders could agree to grant the country candidate status at the summit.
Ukraine is “nowhere near” the standards required for candidate status for membership in the EU, said the diplomat, who asked not to be named.
Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, has repeatedly urged the EU to expedite Kiev’s membership bid in light of the Russian invasion of his country.
“Prove that you are with us,” Zelensky told a special sitting of the European Parliament last week.
Membership of the bloc tends to be a lengthy, technical and politically fraught process, during which countries have to align with EU rules and values.
The first day of the two-day event in Versailles is to focus on bolstering the bloc against the economic impact of the war and how to wean the EU off Russian energy imports, which account for more than 40% of its overall consumption.
Plans published by the European Commission on Tuesday outlined the bloc’s shift away from Russian gas before 2030. Moscow’s repeated threats to suspend gas supplies have injected urgency into the discussions.
Some EU member states are pushing for new rules to allow more borrowing to tackle high energy prices during this transition but are meeting resistance. Greece and Spain are also calling for an overhaul of the EU’s energy market to address prices.
The same EU diplomat urged member states to use special EU funds agreed during the Covid-19 pandemic to address the energy price increases rather than introducing new measures.
Also ahead of the summit on Thursday, the commission said subsidized loans and limited grants for businesses negatively impacted by the war in Ukraine and the sanctions subsequently imposed on Russia, were on the table to help protect the bloc’s economy.
Additional sanctions on Russia are also to be discussed at the summit, but talks should focus on closing any loopholes to strengthen the measures already in force, the EU diplomat said.
Former European Council President, Donald Tusk, said the EU should sustain its pressure on Russia, and that, any form of concession should be avoided at all costs.
“Our every weakness, our every concession will be used against us,” Tusk said. “The tougher the sanctions, the greater our solidarity with Ukraine, the bigger the chance to avoid the worst-case scenario, which is a war on our territory.”
Further measures to support EU member states near Ukraine hosting hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the war are also to be addressed.
The EU diplomat’s comments on Ukraine’s membership application, on top of a draft statement seen by dpa, look set to dash any hopes for a quick entry into the EU after the Russian invasion.
“Ukraine belongs in the European family,” the draft says, with no calls to take the application further, despite Zelensky’s push for fast-tracked entry.
Calls for EU member states to invest more in defence spending are also included in the draft statement.
The move comes after the bloc provided €450 million ($497 million) in arms to Ukraine, a historic EU first to arm a non-EU country in a conflict.
GNA