BRUSELAS 28 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, pointed out this Thursday that “no one knows” if the European Union will be able to supply the United States if it drastically cuts military aid to Ukraine when Donald Trump returns to the White House.
“This is the big elephant in the room. It is the question. What would the Europeans do if the new US administration does not continue supporting Ukraine,” he said in a talk at the Brussels Institute for Geopolitics, one day after leaving office and make way for former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas.
In this sense, Borrell has gone back to his visit to Donbas in 2022, just a few weeks before the Russian invasion when the Ukrainian authorities already put on the table the need for the EU to support Ukraine in the face of a possible invasion, which then It ended up being ordered by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on February 24 of that year.
“At that moment I couldn’t say yes because I wasn’t sure. The same question comes back and I don’t think anyone knows the answer,” said the head of European diplomacy, regarding the scenario in which Washington’s aid falters and countries Europeans have to increase their involvement in the conflict in Ukraine.
The High Representative has insisted that the language of power, a slogan he coined upon his arrival to the position in 2019, must be exercised from the strength of European unity. “If you don’t have unity you can’t even speak,” he indicated, regretting that on too many occasions the Member States keep their right to veto, delaying decisions and postponing debates.
In any case, he has indicated that his best moment as head of Foreign Affairs was the bloc’s agile response to mobilize European funds to arm Ukraine against the Russian invasion, a decision that was adopted only a few days after Putin’s large-scale attack. .
Borrell has admitted that at first the European diplomatic services put on the table a proposal of 50 million euros in military aid to Ukraine through the European Mechanism, something that, as he recalled, fell very short and did not respond to the demands of a war. “We are crazy, we are talking about a war. Put three zeros behind it and then we start taking things seriously,” he said about his reaction to the initiative to send weapons to kyiv.
As he admitted, this step would now be more complicated within the EU due to the reluctance of countries like Hungary and Slovakia. “Today the response would not have been the same, because today there are at least two Member States that are not in favor of arming Ukraine,” he noted.