11 November 2024
EU diplomacy chief Josep Borrell is one of the officials whose support for Ukraine is not widely known about by the general public. The Spanish politician from Catalonia is not particularly known for his eloquence, and he has largely acted behind the scenes.
But his contribution to Ukraine’s resilience cannot be overstated.
Borrell can afford to be more candid now, as his term as the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy is soon coming to an end. European Pravda seized this opportunity to speak with the EU’s top diplomat.
Read the full interview in the text by Sergiy Sydorenko, the European Pravda editor – “EU membership is the strongest security guarantee we can offer to Ukraine.”
The world is not just changing – it has changed. And our societies are changing.
The Trump election in the US shows that there are internal and external dynamics which make people have different relationships with politics – even with truth. There are deep transformations in the world, in geopolitical balances and inside democratic societies.
For Europe, this is another awakening moment. If we want to influence the world, we need to be more united, we need to build a stronger Europe.
And I hope that we Europeans will be able to do that. At least, that’s what the leaders of the EU agreed on a couple of days ago in Budapest.
But then comes the fact that this new reality affects Ukraine, the Middle East, and China – the three poles of the geopolitical tensions today. Things will certainly be different.
But we don’t know what the US policy will be in respect to Ukraine.
But I know that the European Council has just reaffirmed the commitment of the European Union to support Ukraine, and I’m here to pass on this message.
We have been supporting Ukraine and we will continue supporting Ukraine. Not because we are very friendly and we are very generous – but because it is in our interest! The security of Ukraine is part of our security!
If Ukraine falls, our security will be at stake.
And this has to be explained to the European people.
We are at more than 980,000. So very soon, we will have provided 1 million rounds.
All in all, our overall supplies to Ukraine will be more than 1.5 million by the end of the year.
And Ukraine’s membership in the EU is the strongest security commitment or security guarantee that we can offer to Ukraine.
The EU is not a military alliance, like NATO is. So not being a military alliance doesn’t mean that we don’t provide each other security guarantees.
We have been showing solidarity with Ukraine even without you being a member of the European Union. And there would have been much more if you were a member.
[€]122 billion [US$131 billion] of overall European assistance to Ukraine. 122 billion!
This would not have been possible without unanimity, and Hungary has been part of it.
But I want to say that in the last report about the enlargement process that the Commission approved some weeks ago, Ukraine was considered to be doing very well, much better than some other states who have been preparing for membership for many more years. In the last report, Ukraine is very well rated.
And I really admire what you do.
Let me focus on the defenсe industry – I just visited a drone factory that grew from nothing. Ukrainian innovation capacity and production capacity is astonishing! So I think that Ukrainian people deserve to keep their sovereignty and independence. And you deserve to be a member of the European Union club.
https://www.eurointegration.com.ua/eng/news/2024/11/11/7198136
“We have been supporting Ukraine and we will continue supporting Ukraine. Not because we are very friendly and we are very generous – but because it is in our interest! The security of Ukraine is part of our security!”
Nice cozy, fuzzy, warm words … words such as these and many others with similar context have been blathered all along this terrible war.
Fact is that with the West’s economic and military might, this war could’ve been over two years ago already … easy. As a mater of fact, with a real president in office, this war could’ve been prevented. However, as we know, none of this came to pass. None of this happened because we have all the wrong people in high places. Thus, the problem is not mafia land’s strength, or its desire and readiness to do great evil, or that it’s gangster friends in iran, north korea and china are too powerful, no, the problem is our weak leaders.
Will Trump change things? So far, it caused another rush of hot air from various Western entities. But, there’s nothing concrete yet. It was like this with north korea entering the war. It also caused nothing but CO2. Now, you hardly hear anything anymore. They got used to yet another escalation. Their heads are stuck in sand again, hoping this will just go away.
The longer they allow this war to go on and the more escalations they allow to happen without some serious consequences, the costlier and the more dangerous it becomes, not for Ukraine, it’s already at maximum danger, but for this entire planet. Do the ostriches know this? If so, they belong in prison for gross endangerment of their countries and Western civilization.