The former president of the European Commission tells Euronews the EU’s wide-ranging sanctions on Moscow inevitably ties the the bloc to any negotiations on a peace settlement.
Russia is the “first to be interested in having Europe associated” with future talks on peace in Ukraine, José Manuel Barroso, the former president of the European Commission, told Euronews in a live interview on Friday morning, hours after the EU’s 27 leaders wrapped up a summit in Brussels.
“Mr. Putin said it already: there will be no peace without the lifting of sanctions that have been imposed by the European Union,” Barroso explained.
“Sooner or later the European Union will come because there will be no peace without the European Union. Quite clearly.”
So far, the EU has been largely excluded from telephone diplomacy between the US, Ukrainian and Russian presidents and from the technical talks happening between their teams in the Middle East.
France’s Emmanuel Macron and the UK’s Keir Starmer are rallying a coalition of like-minded countries willing to play their part in a potential future ceasefire and peace agreement, but they have not so far been directly involved in talks.
But Barroso says Russia will inevitably want to table the lifting of the EU’s sanctions in any potential peace talks. The bloc has adopted an unprecedented 16 packages of wide-ranging sanctions since the outbreak of the war more than three years ago, in a bid to cripple the Kremlin’s war-chest.
Despite Hungary mounting opposition to the measures at several points, the bloc has always managed to convince Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban to agree to deepen sanctions, a decision that requires the unanimous blessing of all member states.
Last week, Budapest dropped its veto on the renewal of sanctions targeted at high-profile Russians, after weeks of resistance.
“I was in the (European) Commission in 2014 when already then Mr Orban opposed sanctions on Russia. But in spite of that opposition, the EU adopted 16 packages of sanctions,” Barroso explained.
European leaders ‘act in crises’
The former Commission chief spoke hours after a summit of EU leaders wrapped up in Brussels, where as expected, Hungary vetoed the conclusions on Ukraine due to its opposition to Kyiv’s accession to the bloc and the EU’s ‘peace through strength’ strategy to heavily arm Ukraine as a deterrence to Russian invasion.
In that statement adopted at 26, the bloc said it was ready to impose further sanctions on the Kremlin.
Barroso denied that the EU’s unity was unravelling, saying it’s “natural” to have rifts and remarkable that as many as 26 countries can agree on such a wide range of matters.
“Can you show me any other place in the world where we have 26 countries agreeing on so many matters as the European Union?” Barroso asked.
“It’s a complete mistake to think that because one or two countries have different opinions that the European Union cannot act,” he went on, explaining that the EU treaties allow a group of countries to move forward on initiatives without unanimity.
Barroso also said that the gravity of the current geopolitical situation will inevitably mean that the EU will act, citing Finland and Sweden’s accession into NATO and the tweaking of Germany’s debt brake as clear signs of their readiness to take unprecedented action.
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