In recent days, an extraordinary European Council was held to discuss the "Ukraine" issue following the latest decisions of Donald Trump's United States of America. In essence, and to condense the terms of the issue, European leaders seem to harbor the fear (whether well-founded or not, time will tell) that Donald Trump, in an attempt to present himself to the world, but above all to his electorate, as an undisputed peace broker, could push Ukraine to negotiate a peace that is anything but advantageous. Even more so if one wants to consider that the very powerful Elon Musk himself has declared that "it makes no sense for America to pay for the defense of Europe" which, as supported by Donald Trump in the past years during his first term, should instead put more money into the Atlantic Alliance. And even more so, if one wants to consider that, again Elon Musk, has said he is convinced that America should leave NATO and that, "without Starlink the Ukrainian army would collapse". Well. Such, and of such consistency, would seem to be the state of the art, so to speak. And the one that just met, on the other hand, would seem to have been a European Council of a purely evaluative nature, if one wanted to define it that way, since every actually operational decision would seem to have been postponed to the next Council on 20 and 21 March.

In short, a political steering council whose final declaration, although voted by majority, was not unanimous in its consensus due to the non-adhesion of Hungary, whose Prime Minister, according to the news circulating in the media, would not have shared the intention not only to continue to militarily support Ukraine, but also to absorb the costs that the United States would have stopped paying.

Five would then seem to be the key points of the deliberations of the European Council . Principles that, all things considered, in substance, would seem (the conditional always seems necessary) not to add anything new to what has been supported so far by the European Union, in one, roughly, to what was the Biden administration and that, perhaps, would seem to reflect all the critical issues emerging, and still existing, following the announced disengagement of the United States of Donald Trump, as bearers and supporters of a position diametrically opposed to that of the recalled past administration: no negotiations on Ukraine without Ukraine; no negotiations without the European Union where that negotiation could affect the security of the same, since the security of Ukraine, of the European Union and the transatlantic are mutually connected; security guarantees for Ukraine; respect for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. So what? ReArm Europe Plan, a project not otherwise verified by the European Parliament, what purpose would it have? Would it really be useful? Whose responsibility would the so-called “rearmament” be? Would it constitute a truly “common” unitary “defense” or would it be a project whose costs would ultimately fall on the Member States? Who would benefit? Even more so when one considers that Article 5 of NATO, which the President of the Council of Ministers seems to have suggested she would like to see extended to Ukraine, even though it is extremely complex to predict how (assuming and probably not conceding that this is possible), notoriously provides that any attack against one of the Member States must be considered as an attack against all with a consequent collective response.

But if Ukraine's entry into NATO is not currently under discussion, how would it be possible to make it fall under the provisions of the aforementioned Article 5? Donald Trump's United States has ruled out such a hypothesis, and for Vladimir Putin, Volodymir Zelensky's Ukraine would seem to be a so-called "red line". Rearmament, even if we wanted to consider everything, in the current geopolitical panorama, would not seem to be a solution. It would be more interesting and probably much more useful to pursue broad diplomatic paths towards a ceasefire in order to then be able to reflect on the future of the European Union and its useful reorganization to face future technological, environmental and sociological challenges.

Giuseppina Di Salvatore – Lawyer, Nuoro

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