European leaders stunned: Macron calls emergency summit in Paris

Participants of the summit will discuss how they will support Ukraine in light of U.S. President Donald Trump’s views on a possible cessation of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

They will also address the position European countries will take on Ukraine’s NATO membership and what security guarantees should be provided for Ukraine, whether considering its Euro-Atlantic integration or in case this path is blocked by the United States.

Among the leaders gathering on February 17 at the Élysée Palace will be German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

It can be said that this summit goes beyond just a meeting of state leaders, as NATO Secretary General will be present, and beyond the European Union, since Emmanuel Macron specifically invited the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, who, by the way, will meet President Donald Trump in Washington next week and will be able to convey the summit participants' views to him.

The very fact of convening the meeting is quite unprecedented and indicates that European leaders are shocked not only by the first phone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, but also by how quickly contacts began between the Trump administration and Putin’s administration.

Moreover, during these contacts, both leaders ignored the interests of the European Union as well as Ukraine's perspective on how the peace process on the Russian-Ukrainian front should develop. And the fact that Donald Trump evidently believes he can reach an agreement with Putin on the terms of a deal that does not need to be coordinated with Kyiv or European capitals.

Of course, his special representative for resolving the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, General Kellogg, says quite different things — about the necessity of taking Ukrainian interests into account and that the United States is ready to listen to European perspectives.

However, it seems that Trump himself doesn’t pay much attention to the advice of his special representative, who rather acts as a spokesperson to reassure both the Ukrainian leadership and European leaders. After the scandalous speech by U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance at the Munich Conference, Kellogg's role and the mood in the new U.S. administration became clear to all European leaders.

It has also become clear that the new administration views the role of the United States in the world quite differently than its predecessors, even more so than during Donald Trump's first presidency, which was not associated with such an obvious far-right assault on the values and traditions that marked Euro-Atlantic solidarity after World War II. These values could have represented a decisive break from the far-right and nationalist sentiments known in Europe in the 1930s, sentiments that led the continent into the destructive Second World War.

This fear and the need to develop a common strategy, which will no longer be based solely on hopes for common sense within the U.S. administration, will be at the heart of the extraordinary summit of European leaders and the NATO Secretary General at the Élysée Palace. By the way, it will be after this summit that we will understand what Europe is capable of and what decisions it can make when it has to act not alongside the United States but rather in defiance of Donald Trump’s desire to build special relations with Vladimir Putin and other leaders of authoritarian regimes in the modern world.

When the United States is not outright opposing the other side, it at least observes them with barely concealed sympathies. These sympathies, incidentally, were also evident among European politicians who, for years, sought to maintain ties with Vladimir Putin while simultaneously cultivating a friendship with Donald Trump.

I am referring, by the way, to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who, just before this emergency European summit, blocked Ukraine's European integration process. And we must again recognize that if Donald Trump had not won the U.S. presidential election and if ultra-right tendencies in American society had not triumphed, Orbán would hardly have dared to consciously confront the European Union. He understands who supports him, if not on the opposite side of the barricades, then at least among those who sympathetically observe the leaders on that side.

Here, Europeans also need to realize what to do with countries that are simultaneously becoming agents of influence for both Trump and Putin, and are ready to block the development of the European Union and NATO in a way that aligns with the interests of both the American president and his Russian negotiation partner.

Because if Europeans fail to find effective tools to deal with those within their ranks who are willing to act against Euro-Atlantic and European solidarity, it could lead to dramatic shifts in the fate of the European Union itself. It could result in a crisis of the European project, where Europeans would truly become hostages to agreements between Putin, Trump, Xi Jinping, and where the European leaders and the democratic world will have no say, as ultra-right and authoritarian politicians of the 21st century will disregard them entirely.

Thus, effective resistance against both authoritarianism and the oppressive ultra-right tendencies that are currently dominating the United States is Europe's number one task.

If European leaders fail to meet this challenge, it can be said that soon post-fascist political forces, supported by figures like Elon Musk, J.D. Vance, and other ultra-right politicians in the United States, will rise to power in European countries. The continent will quickly start descending into its century-old predicament, reminiscent of the 1930s, when its fate was determined by figures like Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and other ultra-right politicians who were in serious conflict with ultra-left countries and movements, with whom they, as we know, eventually found common ground.

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About the author. Vitaly Portnikov, journalist, laureate of the Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine.

The editors don't always share the opinions expressed by the blog authors.