'We support Ukraine as long as it takes'
Britain hosts the fourth meeting of the European Political Community, gathering 50 leaders from across Europe. The president of the European Council, Charles Michel, helped organize the summit. He spoke to DW's Bernd Riegert about Europe, the US race for the White House and the war in Ukraine.
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00:00Mr. President, how should Europe prepare for a possible second presidency of Donald Trump in the United States?
00:08What should Europe do?
00:09One thing is absolutely clear. We have to be more resilient.
00:12We have to develop more tools to have more influence in the world and to defend better our values and our interests.
00:20This is what we do with the strategic agenda.
00:23This is an orientation document, an agreement that we have fixed in the European Council.
00:29It is good that there is a broad support for this idea that we have to work on two pillars.
00:35First, economic base, innovation, single market. We have to deepen the single market.
00:40We have to be more powerful from an economic point of view, point one.
00:43And second, security and defense.
00:45And this is new because you know that before the full-scale invasion, there were debates in the field of European defense,
00:52but there were also doubts on the need for the EU to be more active in that field.
00:57Today, there is a clear and strong consensus that we have to do much more in the field of defense, including industry.
01:04If Donald Trump would scrap American support for Ukraine, were the EU or Europe able to replace that?
01:13I'm absolutely convinced that the American people, they understand very well that if the United States would be weak with Russia
01:23and would allow Russia to dominate, it would mean that the signal sent to other autocratic regimes would be also a weak signal.
01:35And I'm thinking about China, for instance.
01:37That's why I think we have a lot of arguments in Europe, but not only in Europe, with partners in the Indo-Pacific,
01:42with other partners in the northern part of America, to convince the American people that this is the interest of the United States
01:52to be a loyal partner for more action in the field of global security and stability.
02:00Talking about Ukraine, do you think you can uphold the unity in Europe because you have a Prime Minister of Hungary
02:08traveling around the world on his own peace mission?
02:12Does he have a point when he says we need peace talks and also a ceasefire?
02:19Point one, I made it very clear even before the Prime Minister of Hungary went to Moscow
02:25that he has no mandate to engage on behalf of the EU and that he has no responsibility in that field, point one.
02:33And point two, we have a clear position and this clear position was confirmed once again in June, a few weeks ago.
02:41We support Ukraine for as long as it takes and we want that those responsible will be taken accountable
02:51for what they are doing against the people of Ukraine.
02:55And I would like to tell you that I feel that there is a strong unity around the table of the European Council.
03:02And a good signal is the fact that very quickly following this trip to Moscow,
03:06we have seen 26 member states communicating very clearly and making absolutely crystal clear
03:14that we are determined to support Ukraine.
03:17But doesn't Viktor Orban have a point when he says there is no clear path from the EU how to accomplish peace
03:25and people in Europe want this war to be over?
03:28I think it's important to be consistent.
03:30We are sincere and we are sincere when we say that we want to support Ukraine's sovereignty and total integrity.
03:36It means it's not acceptable to talk about Ukraine without Ukraine
03:39and the Ukrainians have to decide what and when things are possible.
03:45And that's why we support the peace summit that took place in Switzerland.
03:49Why? Because this is an attempt to rally the international community behind the principles of the UN Charter.
03:56And we all understand that we are all weak if we would accept that a country,
04:03which is a permanent member of the Security Council in possession of the nuclear weapon,
04:09can invade a country with more than 40 million inhabitants without any reaction of the international community.
04:15It would mean that everywhere in the world we are more vulnerable.
04:19And that's why it's important to reach out, to engage with the rest of the world,
04:23so that we convince the rest of the world that the right way to act to protect our common future
04:29and to provide more stability in the future is to make very clear that what Russia is doing is not acceptable.