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Macron hosts EU leaders at Versailles for Ukraine summit

EU leaders will scramble at an informal summit near Paris to find ways to address the fallout of Russia's invasion of Ukraine that has hit the bloc's economy and exposed its defensive fragility.

Published: 10 March 2022 08:58 CET

Macron hosts EU leaders at Versailles for Ukraine summit

Ukrainian and EU and flags outside the European Parliament in Strasbourg. (Photo: Frederick Florin / AFP)

The meeting at Versailles was set to be the high point of France’s six-month EU presidency, but President Emmanuel Macron will instead spearhead a crisis summit to answer Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s brutal disruption to decades of stability in Europe.

“Russia’s war of aggression constitutes a tectonic shift in European history,” a draft of the two-day meeting’s final declaration said.

The leaders will grasp, “how the EU can live up to its responsibilities in this new reality, protecting our citizens, values, democracies, and our European model”.

The 27 heads of state and government meet as fighting raged for a 15th day in Ukraine, with more than two million refugees escaping mainly to Poland but also to countries across Europe.

The conflict has seen a swell of support in the EU for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and leaders were expected to consider the leader’s plea to swiftly join the EU and escape the clutches of Russia.

“Our first priority is to send a political message to Ukraine that it belongs to the European family,” an official from the French presidency said.

Energy issue

But diplomats said the main topic in Versailles was to explore ways to shore up Europe’s self-reliance in a starkly more dangerous world, especially on energy.

“I think energy is the biggest issue on leaders’ minds right now,” said a source with close knowledge of the summit preparations.

The energy price shock caused by the Ukraine invasion has hurt an EU economy emerging from the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic and fuelled heated discussions on how to protect consumers.

Western allies have unfurled waves of anti-Russia sanctions whose knock-on effects have exposed Europe’s dependency on Moscow for gas and oil, a reality the meeting will seek ways to address.

Europe’s dependency on Russian energy even caused the first crack in the West’s unified response to Putin’s aggression, with the EU this week shying away from a ban on Russian oil imports implemented by the United States and Britain.

The EU imports about 40 percent of its natural gas from Russia, with Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, especially dependent on the energy flow, along with Italy and several central European countries.

About a quarter of the EU’s oil imports also come from Russia.

According to the meeting’s final declaration, the 27 leaders will agree to “phase out” the bloc’s dependency on Russian gas, oil and coal.

Defence sovereignty
The EU leaders will also try to advance on ways Europe can build its sovereignty in highly sensitive sectors, including semiconductors, food production and, most notably, defence.

Collective security in the European Union is primarily handled by the US-led NATO alliance, but France, the EU’s biggest military power, would like the bloc to play a bigger role.

Since Russia’s belligerence against its pro-EU neighbour, bloc members have approved a total of half a billion euros in defence aid to Ukraine.

Berlin dramatically broke with long-standing doctrine when it announced it will plough €100 billion into national defence.

In view of the challenges, “we must resolutely invest more and better in defence capabilities and innovative technologies”, the leaders were expected to say.

Member comments

Anonymous - 10 March 2022 at 11:25 CET

EU is already supplying weapons to the Ukrainian side and helping in humanitarian relief, short of starting a war with Russia, a war nobody can win I can’t see the EU doing much else to stop this war.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

With his emphasis on, “strategic autonomy” for Europe in the economy and defence, many see subsequent events like the Covid pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine validating Macron’s vision.

But the minister acknowledged that the president’s star power might be “less powerful than in 2019”, when voters last picked the Brussels parliament.

Macron’s popularity has been battered by two years of minority government and contentious reforms on issues including pensions and immigration.

Polls show that inflation driven by successive crises is also a top concern for people feeling the pinch in their weekly shopping.

Surveys point to support in the high teens for Macron’s centrist party, well below the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) at around 30 percent, while the Socialists are snapping at the presidential camp’s heels for second place.

“It would be a real earthquake if the president’s majority came third” in the European elections, said political scientist Bruno Cautres.

The head of the governing party’s list for the elections, the little-known Valerie Hayer, is failing to make an impact, especially in the face of high-profile figures leading the rival lists in the shape Jordan Bardella, 28, for the far right and Raphael Glucksmann for the left.

It now appears Macron is ready to wade into the campaign in person.

On Thursday, Macron “wants to reclaim the initiative, avoid humiliation and try to keep the number-two spot at any cost,” Cautres said, noting that there was little hope his party could overtake the RN.

Heading into the European election, “Macron is hanging on to the core of his base”, said communications consultant Marie d’Ouince, a veteran of French centre-left politics.

“It’s still very early” in the campaign, she added, suggesting that support for the president’s party, “may crystallise bit by bit, but you need the right arguments”.

“We’re organised, we have the right candidate… above all we have the right ideas,” Macron said in Brussels last week alongside Hayer, a sitting MEP who has never held a government post.

For d’Ouince, “with recent international events, since Covid, Europe has become part of everyday life for French people”.

Macron should use the speech to “tally up everything Europe has contributed for France”, she said.

“Macron has always been at the cutting edge on the European question,” lending his voice weight at “a grave moment” for the bloc, Cautres said.

But he will have to remember he is addressing the French voting public, not just a prestigious university or think-tanks in Paris and Brussels.

Macron “has to be simple”, using “sentences… with a subject, a verb and an object,” d’Ouince said, citing a maxim of former president Francois Mitterrand.

“For instance, ‘If we hadn’t had Europe, we wouldn’t have had the vaccines'” against Covid, she suggested.

The eurosceptic, anti-immigrant RN has its riposte to Macron prepared. “This speech, whose content I can anticipate… will also mobilise our voters,” figurehead Marine Le Pen said this week.

She added that RN would call for France’s national parliament to be dissolved for new elections if the president’s party suffers a crushing defeat.

With three years until France’s next presidential election, Macron will hope to avoid setting up the RN for a win after twice selling himself as the man to exclude the far right from power.

He cannot run again in 2027, which adds the challenge of fending off a succession battle in his own camp that could leave him a lame duck.

Recent polls show his approval rating at just below 30 percent, leaving the risk that “his unpopularity wins out and people don’t listen to him”, d’Ouince said.