Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Macron, Scholz, Duda Discuss Ukraine, NATO, migration


Tue 13 Jun 2023 | 12:31 PM
Israa Farhan

On Monday, France's President Emmanuel Macron welcomed German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish leader Andrzej Duda, with the Polish prime minister pressing the case for Ukraine to gain NATO membership.

The three gathered to talk about military support for Kyiv's counterattack and humanitarian aid to the country after the breach of the Kakhovka Dam in the Kherson region.

"We have done everything to help it," Macron said of Ukraine's counteroffensive. "We have intensified the delivery of ammunition, weapons, and armored vehicles... We will continue in coming days and weeks."

On Monday, the Ukrainian military announced new gains, claiming to have recaptured seven villages along a front of about 100 kilometers (60 miles) in the country's southeast.

Macron said he expected the offensive to continue for several weeks or several months.

"We want it to be as successful as possible so that we can then start a negotiation phase in good conditions," Macron said of the counter-offensive.

Ukraine urges NATO members to make concrete progress on joining the alliance at the July summit.

It wants to see the current NATO-Ukraine Committee upgraded to the new NATO-Ukraine Council, which will be a joint advisory forum to promote discussion of security issues.

Other NATO leaders such as Jens Stoltenberg have made it clear in the past that Ukraine's accession is "not on the agenda" during the conflict.

On Monday, Macron said the meeting showed there was no division between "old and new Europe," a distinction once drawn by former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld when eastern European countries refused to support Western powers in Europe in opposing the Iraq war.

However, some disagreements emerged in the shorter question-and-answer session with reporters, for example when Macron and Scholz said they supported the EU asylum reform deal reached last week in Brussels.

Part of the deal would include EU countries unwilling to take in refugees with the option of contributing to a fund run by Brussels to support those who would host them.

Duda noted that his government remained "skeptical" about a deal the EU says it hopes will be enforceable next year.