Macron’s ‘Emergency’ Ukraine Summit in Paris Fails to Produce Unified European Strategy, as Poles and Germans Balk at Deploying Troops

Monday’s ’emergency’ meeting in Paris appears to have confirmed the Trump administration’s reluctance to include European leaders in Ukraine peace talks as deep divides remain on Europe’s role in the peace process.

The leaders of eight European nations, alongside two top EU representatives, descended on Paris on Monday for a summit on Ukraine that was hastily organised after U.S. officials at the Munich Security Conference shot down the idea of having the Europeans “at the table” of peace negotiations intended to end the war in Ukraine.

The summit received a boost as British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he would be willing to sign onto President Macron’s plan of deploying European troops to the former Soviet state to act as a buffer against further Russian aggression. Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer also said that her country “does not exclude” the possibility of sending Swedish troops into Ukraine.

However, it soon became clear ahead of the summit that a broader consensus remains out of reach.

Prior to travelling to Paris, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk shut down deploying his country’s forces to Ukraine. Tusk, who is at the helm of the largest military by numbers in the EU, said per daily Fakt: “Poland will support Ukraine, as before, organizationally, in line with our financial, humanitarian and military assistance capabilities. We do not envisage sending Polish soldiers to Ukraine, but we will also support when it comes to logistics and political support of countries that may want to provide such guarantees in the future, these physical guarantees for Ukraine.”

The Polish prime minister, whose country shares a land border with Russia’s Kaliningrad outpost territory, said he would urge other leaders at the Paris summit to increase their defence spending to follow his nation’s example.

Following the meeting, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that it was “highly inappropriate” to discuss sending troops to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, a government source from Berlin briefed the French paper Le Figaro ahead of the meeting to say that Germany would not consider sending troops to Ukraine unless they have the “full commitment of the United States” to underwrite their security.

Arguing that the peacekeeping process in Ukraine must be a “transatlantic task”, the German official said: “We will not participate in scenarios in which European and American security would dissociate, for example, if European soldiers were deployed without full commitment from the United States.”

The comments from Berlin appear to have been made in reference to statements from U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who said, according to Breitbart News, that the Trump administration does not plan on deploying any American troops to Ukraine and that any European force would not be considered a NATO mission, meaning that if European soldiers came under fire from the Russians in Ukraine, it would not trigger Article 5 of the alliance’s agreement mandating Americans come to their defence given that such an action would likely trigger a war between the world’s two largest nuclear powers.

Hungary criticised the summit in Paris, which, despite sharing a border with Ukraine, was not invited to take part in the talks. Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said, “War-supporting, anti-Trump European leaders are gathering in Paris today to block peace efforts in Ukraine.”

“The era of interventionist politics is over,” Szijjártó continued. “Unlike those meeting in Paris, who fueled escalation for three years, we support peace efforts and negotiations.”

The failure of the meeting in Paris to reach a meaningful conclusion on the role that Europe can play in the aftermath of a potential negotiated settlement to the war appears to have vindicated the scepticism from the Trump White House to involve the Europeans in the upcoming talks between Kyiv and Moscow.

At the Munich Security Conference over the weekend, US Special Presidential Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg argued that previous negotiations, such as the Minsk II accords in 2015, failed to create a lasting peace between Russia and Ukraine because there were too many voices at the table and thus fresh talks should only involve Moscow and Kyiv with Washington acting as a mediator.

The Russians have previously expressed scepticism over Europe’s intentions regarding Ukraine. Vladimir Putin has, for example, often cited remarks from former German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2022 in which she appeared to suggest that the Minsk agreement was merely intended to buy Ukraine “time” to build up its forces.

There are also widespread doubts about the viability of European states being able to commit to a large-scale and potentially long-term military deployment in Ukraine in light of the decisions made by leaders for decades to invest in expensive welfare programmes while relying on the United States to underwrite the continent’s security.

Indeed, despite UK Prime Minister Starmer’s stated willingness to deploy British troops in “harm’s way” in Ukraine and his government’s commitment to raising defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP, the former head of the British Army, Lord Richard Dannatt, said that Starmer is living in “fantasy-land” if he believes the UK can sustain such a deployment.

Lord Dannatt told the BBC: “Frankly, we haven’t got the numbers, and we haven’t got the equipment to put a large force onto the ground for an extended period of time at the present moment” and added that UK defence spending would need to increase to at least 3 or 3.5 per cent immediately to even consider a mission like that being discussed.

The former British Army chief said that up to 40,000 British troops would be required, assuming a schedule of six-month rotating deployments. With the total current strength only around 73,000 troops, the UK does not have the necessary number of soldiers, he warned.

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