In his speech on ascending to the President of the EU, Macron called for negotiations between Europe and Russia over the situation in the Ukraine.
The EU must open its own talks with Russia rather than rely on Washington, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has said as he warned of the prospect of the “most tragic thing of all – war”.
In a wide-ranging speech in Strasbourg, Macron said it was not sufficient for the US to negotiate with the Kremlin over its threats to peace but that Europe needed to have its voice heard.
Macron said he hoped to revitalise four-way talks between Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine, known as the Normandy format, to find a solution to the escalating crisis.
The French president, who was speaking to mark the start of his country’s six-month presidency of the EU, told MEPs: “I think our credibility vis-a-vis Russia lies primarily in entering into demanding dialogue.
“And we see that looking at the dialogue that the US and Russia are currently undertaking. I think that it is good for there to be coordination between Europe and the US but it is vital that Europe has its own dialogue with Russia.”
This is significant because the current definition of trans-Atlantic unity on this issue, at least from Washington, DC, is that unity is paramount, and that unity is defined as having the European governments play not any meaningful role in negotiations.
The fact that the French in particular, and the rest of the EU in general, might want a greater role to address their own interests where they diverge from those of the US in discussions with Russia is really not too shocking.
Needless to say, the usual suspects, both in the foreign policy establishment and the press, completely lost their sh%$:
French president Emmanuel Macron called on the EU to forge its own plan for “security and stability” with Russia, in a move that risks undermining western solidarity in the face of Kremlin aggression towards Ukraine.
In a speech to the European Parliament, Macron called for EU states to “conduct their own dialogue” with Russia rather than support ongoing diplomatic efforts led by the US and Nato — and in sharp contrast to a plea from US secretary of state Antony Blinken for “unity”.
Macron said that despite the joint EU-US diplomacy, Europeans had to offer Russia a solution to de-escalate tensions with Moscow in the “coming weeks”.
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It also breaks a united front between the EU and US on Russia forged by what officials have described as unprecedented levels of diplomatic outreach by the US to engage Brussels in the ongoing dialogue with Moscow.
Macron is correct here. (I cannot believe that I just said that) European interests differ from those of the US, which in this consist of expanding its markets for its weapons and maintaining the US position as the sole superpower in the world.
Macron could go further, and, as de Gaulle did with the UL's accession to what was then the European Economic Community in the 1960s, and say, "Non," explicitly stating that he will oppose the admission of The Ukraine and Georgia, which requires unanimity of all current members.
Obviously, this would not bind his successors, but it would go a long way toward defusing the current crisis in the near term.
Of course, the US foreign policy establishment, aka, "The Blob," would blow a gasket, as they believe that a precondition to all negotiations with the United States must involve capitulation of the parties on the other side of the table, but they have engineered failure after failure for at least a generation.
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