Diplomacy: Three-way summit on Ukraine: Macron receives Scholz and Duda

Diplomacy: Three-way summit on Ukraine: Macron receives Scholz and Duda

In the Élysée Palace, Germany, France and Poland want to map out the further course of support for Ukraine. Central topic: the upcoming NATO summit.

French President Emmanuel Macron is receiving Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Polish Head of State Andrzej Duda for a three-way summit in Paris today. A joint dinner is planned in the Élysée Palace, which will deal with the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, further support for Kiev and the preparation of the NATO summit in July, which is important for Ukraine, as it was said in Berlin.

Macron will first meet the Polish President, after Scholz’s arrival the consultations will then continue in threes, the Élysée said. It is foreseeable that military support for Ukraine for a successful counter-offensive will be involved, as well as humanitarian aid, especially after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam. Security guarantees that can be granted to Ukraine in the long term to protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity are also a topic.

Selenskyj hopes for concrete prospects for joining NATO

At the NATO summit in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius on July 11 and 12, Ukraine wants to get concrete prospects of being admitted to the defense alliance. However, important allies are slowing down. For the presumably long transition period, there are discussions about upgrading the existing NATO-Ukraine Commission to a new NATO-Ukraine Council. Such a joint advisory forum would be an important step towards being able to discuss key security issues with Ukraine on an equal footing.

The proposal for the new NATO-Ukraine Council is seen as a way of accommodating Ukraine at the summit in Lithuania. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is actually hoping for concrete prospects of joining NATO. Countries like Germany and the USA do not want to give this up to now. One reason is concern about an unpredictable reaction by Russia, which is trying to prevent the country from joining NATO with its war of aggression against Ukraine. Selenskyj, on the other hand, receives support from the eastern alliance states.

Putin: deployment of tactical nuclear weapons

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced that he would begin deploying tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, a country neighboring Lithuania, just ahead of the NATO summit.

The three-way meetings between Germany, France and Poland are called the “Weimar Triangle” because the discussion format was founded in 1991 in Weimar, Thuringia. It initially served primarily to bring Poland and other Eastern European countries closer to the European Union and NATO. In the meantime, the format has lost much of its importance. In February 2022, a top-level meeting took place for the first time in many years, followed by another on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in February 2023.

Source: Stern

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