Faced with the biggest security crisis in Europe since 1945, the major powers took matters into their own hands, bypassing the usual consensus among all EU countries. French President Emmanuel Macron held an emergency meeting in Paris on Monday, the 17th of February, after news broke that the US was preparing to negotiate with Russia without involving Europe and Ukraine. But Europe’s “big guns”, fearful of Trump’s plans and trying to establish a common position on Ukraine, failed to agree on sending troops to Ukraine to monitor the peace there if a peace deal is struck, reports Politico.
The Macron-led Paris mini-summit was attended by leaders from Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, Denmark and even the UK, which left the EU five years ago, but excluded smaller pro-Ukrainian countries such as Latvia and Estonia, which have been tough on Russia, and Moscow-sympathising leaders from Hungary and Slovakia.
But after 3.5 hours of deliberation at the Elysée Palace, the reaction of leaders to the biggest shift in security calculations in decades was underwhelming.
“We are aware that such meetings do not end with decisions,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said after the meeting.
The leaders did not put forward any new joint ideas, argued about sending troops to Ukraine and again mouthed platitudes about aid to Ukraine and increasing defence spending.
“Today in Paris we reaffirmed that Ukraine deserves peace through force,” said both European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa.
The main debate was whether Europe should send troops to Ukraine if a peace deal is reached.
As Trump ruled out the deployment of US troops and Ukraine’s NATO membership, Europe should take responsibility for preventing future Russian attacks. The US has reportedly sent questions to the European NATO countries on what they could contribute and what they expect from the US.
But no consensus was reached on Monday.
France, whose president first floated the idea of sending troops to Ukraine, and UK President Keir Starmer backed the idea, although Starmer said it could only happen if the US also played a role in peacekeeping.
He insisted that after a peace deal, Ukraine needed “US backstop” to “deter Russia from attacking Ukraine again”.
But Poland, a frontline state and close ally of Ukraine with one of the largest militaries in Europe, refused.
“We do not intend to send Polish troops to Ukraine,” Tusk said in Warsaw before flying to Paris.
“Poland simply does not have the additional capacity to send troops to Ukraine,” said a senior Polish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, noting that the country has long borders with Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave and Russia-allied Belarus that need to be reinforced with Polish forces. “The French are far away, so they can send troops to Ukraine; we are close, so we cannot.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said after the meeting that any debate on sending peacekeepers to Ukraine was “completely premature” and “highly inappropriate” while the war was going on.
Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen said that “many, many” things needed to be clarified before sending troops to Ukraine.
But the leaders found common ground on the need to increase defence spending, which has been rising steadily for a decade.
Starmer acknowledged that “Europeans will have to increase both the spending and the capabilities we are providing to Ukraine”, while Tusk said the US-EU defence relationship has entered a “new phase” as Europeans realise the need for more defence spending and greater self-sufficiency.
“Europe has understood the message from the US that it needs to do more itself,” said Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, adding, “It is too early to conclude concrete agreements.”
The meeting’s host, Macron, agreed. “We are convinced that Europeans must invest better, more, and together in their security and defense — both for today and for the future,” the French president wrote in a late-night post on X.
Schoof reiterated his support for the EU’s proposal to use the emergency clause to substantially increase defence spending, which von der Leyen endorsed at last week’s Munich Security Conference. Under this proposal, countries would be able to exempt defence spending from EU debt and deficit limits.
Despite growing concerns following US Vice President JD Vance’s sharp criticism of European democracy at the Munich summit, most European leaders hesitated to openly distance themselves from the US, which has provided European security since 1945.
“There must be no division between Europe and the US on security and responsibility,” said Scholz, while Tusk added: “Someone must also say that it is in the interests of Europe and the US to cooperate as closely as possible.”