Defense Ministers of Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Poland (E5) met in Paris on Wednesday and promised concrete steps to strengthen European defense and provide security guarantees for Ukraine. TASR reports on this based on Reuters and AFP reports.
Among the European countries, there is a “very broad consensus” on the strengthening of the long -term security of Kiev through the Ukrainian armed forces, said French Minister of Defense Sébastien Lecorna after the meeting.
“It is clear that there is a very wide consensus (…) that the first of the security guarantees for Ukraine is of course the Ukrainian army itself,” Lecorn said before journalists and excluded any post -war “demilitarization” of Ukraine.
Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz also welcomed “the real unity of the continent” and pointed out the threat by Russia.
German Minister Boris Pistorius added that, despite the rapid pace of changes, the current situation could help Europe. “I believe that if we act now, if we prefer security in Europe (…), we will come out of this situation,” he said.
British Defense Minister John Healey said that Britain and its allies know that “we have to strengthen” and re -arm. “We are trying to create a coalition and speed up this work,” he added.
New format of negotiations
The meeting took place in the former Val-de-GRâce military hospital in Paris. The opening part of the meeting was also attended by the Ukrainian Minister of Defense Rusto UMER.
The E5 meeting is the new format of the meeting, which was created after the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election. January’s talks in Warsaw also focused on the development of production capacities in the armaments in European countries, as well as the development of common initiatives with Ukraine.
On Tuesday, 34 chiefs of the General Staff of the Army of the countries – mostly from Europe and NATO, but also from Australia, New Zealand and Japan – met in Paris. United States representatives were not present.
The steps of US President Donald Trump aimed at building narrower relations with Russia and the effort to quickly end the war in Ukraine disrupted long -term Western defense thinking, which stimulated European countries to promote Ukraine support and talk about fast armed.
