Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda has proposed to EU leaders to set January 1, 2030, as a “reference date” for Ukraine’s accession to the EU.
He made the remarks on Thursday at the ongoing meeting of EU leaders on Ukraine and European security in Paris.
A similar summit was held in Paris on Monday, but this time the European countries that did not participate in the first meeting were invited and they also include NATO ally Canada.
“I made the proposal to have this reference date for Ukraine’s EU membership, I proposed a specific date of January 1, 2030. This is a realistic goal and the most important thing is that Ukraine’s EU membership is in our hands and we really have 100-percent influence on the outcome,” he told reporters on Thursday.
“Meanwhile, Ukraine’s NATO membership, of course, depends not only on the decision of the EU, but also on the decision of the other members of the alliance,” he added.
Since the outbreak of the war in February 2022, Ukraine has been actively pursuing EU and NATO membership. While discussions on EU membership have already started, Ukraine’s chances of joining NATO are vague.
Moscow is making Kyiv’s pledge not to join NATO one of the conditions in the ongoing peace talks between the US and Russia. Moscow has long called for the withdrawal of NATO forces from Eastern Europe, considering the alliance an existential threat on its borders. Before invading Ukraine in February 2022, Russia also demanded that the alliance withdraw from Central and Eastern Europe.
Russia’s ‘propaganda victory’
Some European leaders are concerned about the progress of the peace talks and Donald Trump’s changed US policy towards Russia. They fear that Washington will make serious concessions to Moscow and rewrite the continental security agreement, leading to one similar to the Cold War.
Trump has recently attacked Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky, calling him a “dictator without elections” and effectively blaming the Ukrainian leader for the ongoing war.
Some political observers say that this rhetoric shows that the US leader has succumbed to the Russian narrative. Nausėda says it is Europe’s task to change this.
“The Riyadh meeting has raised some concerns, sending certain signals that, unfortunately, show that there are a lot of misconceptions about what is going on in Ukraine, false assumptions. This is probably a victory for Russian propaganda,” the Lithuanian president said.
“I think it is the task of both Europe and our democratic world to change these obviously false narratives,” he added.
Speaking of the US calls for elections in Ukraine, Nausėda stressed that a “fair and lasting” peace must be agreed first.
“It is impossible to do that, to hold elections in a country that is in a state of war. This is a direct path towards false election results or potential sabotage of the elections by the aggressor’s forces,” he stressed.
Europe must continue with its sanctions against Russia, not make concessions, Nausėda insisted. He also hopes that the US leadership will be “in the right information setting” during the peace talks.
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