If, paraphrasing McLuhan, in the world of communication "the medium is the message", in international diplomacy geography is the message and the summit of the European Political Community held today Thursday in Moldova, with the participation of the leaders of 46 countries, therefore, a geopolitical declaration of unity in the face of Vladimir Putin's war against Ukraine as well as support for these countries, both official candidates to join the European Union.
"Here, just 20 kilometers from Ukraine, we have brought together the entire continent to reaffirm our strong collective determination to restore peace to Europe", stressed the Moldovan President, Maia Sandu, at the end of the meeting, held in Mimi Castle, in Buboaca, in a wine estate located southeast of Chisinau and a few tens of 50 kilometers from the pro-Russian separatist region of Transnitria. "Your presence at this summit shows that Moldova is not alone" and "makes us trust more than ever in the democratic future of our country, irreversibly committed to its accession to the European Union."
Moldova was recognized as an EU candidate country in June last year, along with Ukraine, and both countries aspire to start membership negotiations next December. Unlike Kyiv, Chisinau does not want to join the Atlantic Alliance, whose foreign ministers met in Oslo yesterday to discuss what kind of security guarantees it can offer Ukraine until it is a full member of the military organization. which can only happen when the war is over.
The discussions of the allied foreign ministers in Norway loomed large over the Moldova summit. "Why NATO?" Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rhetorically asked in his opening speech at the meeting. "Because when there are no security guarantees, war is guaranteed", which is why "all the neighbors who have a border with Russia and who do not want to be destroyed by them should be full members of the EU and NATO", he defended. the Ukrainian leader in the presence of Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz, Pedro Sánchez, Giorgia Meloni and other European leaders.
Zelensky called on NATO members to give "a clear answer" to Kyiv's request for membership and the necessary security arrangements during the transition at the Alliance summit in Vilnius in July. "This is the year of making decisions," emphasized the Ukrainian leader, who called on his counterparts to exploit "the power of European unity" and understand that Russia "is afraid" of NATO. “It only tries to swallow those outside the common security space and tries to leave conflicts frozen in the territory of its neighbors when it fails to absorb them,” as it did with Transnitria, he said (and, one might add, South Ossetia in Georgia or Donetsk in 2014) .
“How long is Europe going to put up with this?” asked Zelensky, who reached the summit by surprise (in the sense that, for security reasons, Kyiv never announces its travels) after an attempted night of Russian bombing of the capital. and other cities. The Ukrainian president called on European leaders to send fighters, collaborate with the training plan for F-16 pilots provided by Washington and form a coalition to send his country more Patriot-type anti-missile batteries, the powerful anti-aircraft defense system.
The United States and Germany have donated two pieces of equipment that the Ukrainian military is using with a level of success that has impressed Pentagon officials. That armor, Kyiv argues, could be even greater. With more Patriots, "there would be no possibility of launching attacks against Ukraine," Zelensky argued after weeks of Russian bombing raids that seem designed precisely to exhaust Ukraine's defense capabilities. With more anti-defense batteries, the one who would waste material would be Moscow.
The European Political Community (CPE) is a pan-European cooperation format devised by Emmanuel Macron that was inaugurated last year in Prague and will move to Granada in October, under the Spanish presidency of the EU. Of the 48 invited countries (the Twenty-seven, the United Kingdom, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Balkan countries...) only Recep Tayyip Erdogan, recently re-elected president of Turkey this Sunday, was absent at the last minute. The photograph of the large group in front of the medieval castle of Mimi once again highlighted the loneliness of Putin's Russia after 15 months of war.
The holding of the summit in Moldova, a country that Moscow has jokingly designated as "the next Ukraine" and has subjected to constant operations of political destabilization and energy blackmail, has a highly symbolic aspect in the sense of demonstrating European support for both countries. "If it weren't for Ukraine's resistance and courage, my country would have been devastated," stressed her president.
But the meeting wanted to be more than just a photo to become the setting for very specific discussions on how to strengthen European cooperation in the areas of security, energy and mobility. It has been decided, for example, that the CPE countries will be able to participate in EU agreements to protect critical infrastructure, strengthen cybersecurity or fight against disinformation. The forum also served to organize informal political meetings at the highest level on other European challenges. "We must resolve the pending conflicts on our territory, it is our duty and it is necessary for our security," said Macron, who met yesterday, along with Scholz and Charles Michel, with the leaders of Kosovo and Serbia. "What we have asked of both parties is very simple: the organization of new elections as soon as possible" in the four municipalities where there have been clashes in recent days as a result of an election in the former Serbian province without guarantees of validity. For the second time, Macron and Scholz met with the representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan, to try to relax the territorial tensions between these countries. That they were part of the former Soviet orbit is no longer a reason not to get involved.
Organizing the summit has been a major challenge for Moldova, Europe's poorest country, with hardly any armed forces as a result of years of neutrality. Russian missiles have flown over – and fallen – on more than one occasion in its territory and, in yet another example of the tectonic changes caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Moldovan government has allowed NATO to deploy its AWACS surveillance planes, some aircraft that carry out early warning tasks since they are capable of detecting planes, missiles and drones hundreds of kilometers away. The summit, to everyone's relief, was saved without incident.
