British shadow foreign secretary calls for UK-EU security pact
David Lammy, the British shadow foreign secretary, said on stage at the Munich Security Conference that he wants a new security pact between the EU and the UK.
He said:
Of course Iâm hoping that there is a general election this year and I have the privilege of becoming the UK foreign secretary, because itâs absolutely fundamental that the United Kingdom and Europe have the closest of relationships and the Brexit era is over, the situation is settled.
And what my party is proposing is a new EU-UK security pact. And itâs a pact that is effectively built on the fact that we obviously have war here in Europe.
But the truth is, and itâs important that we summon up to the room the courage of Alexei Navalny â what it reminds is that not withstanding that war, Russia will continue to be a threat for Europe for months, years, perhaps a generation more.
And that means that the defence capability of the UK, alongside our partners in France particularly representing about 50% of Europeâs defence capability, but also the intelligence capability of the Five Eyes system in partnership with the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, is absolutely essential, and is why we need now a new security pact.
Now, that security pact is not to rival Nato, it is to run in parallel with Nato.
Key events
We need to solve grain and trucking problems, Polish minister says while stressing solidarity
Polandâs Radek Sikorski stressed Polandâs support for Ukraine but acknowledged that Warsaw and Kyiv have two problems linked to grain and trucking.
This is difficult because itâs structural.
He added:
We need to solve this so as not to cloud the overall picture of great Polish solidarity with Ukraine.
And there is a solution on the horizon to both of them â which is Ukraineâs victory in the Black Sea.
The reason why the trucking is so vital is that Ukraine wasnât able to export its goods via the sea. And the same for grain. If we really and truly regain
Radek Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, said on a panel together with Georgiaâs president Salome Zourabichvili that âitâs very importantâ that the countryâs former president Mikheil Saakashvili, who is now in jail, be âtreated fairly and perhaps you could contribute to his release.â
âThose who wish Georgia well would welcome it,â he said.
Responding to Republican senator J.D. Vance, German politician Ricarda Lang pushed back at the idea of a deal with Russia.
Putin has shown over and over again â and he just showed this with the murder of Navalny on Friday â that he has no interest in peace at the moment. That he does not want peace.
So if you say we stop supporting Ukraine, stop giving weapons to them, you are not having some scenario where this leads to peace, but at the moment this leads to two scenarios: either you are prolonging the war, or you give up Ukraine and Putin wins.
Republican senator says Putin not existential threat to Europe, negotiated peace with Russia reasonable
J.D. Vance, the Republican senator from Ohio, said he believes Donald Trump doesnât want to abandon Europe, but âis actually issuing a wake up call to say that Europe has to take a bigger role in its own security.â
He added: âI do not think that Vladimir Putin is an existential threat to Europe, and to the extent that he is, again, that suggests that Europe has to take a more aggressive role in its own security.â
The senator said that âgiven the realitiesâ his argument is that âwhatâs reasonable to accomplish is some negotiated peace.â
I think Russia has incentive to come to the table right now.
I think Ukraine, Europe and the United States have incentive to come to the table.
That is going to happen. This will end in a negotiated peace, the question is when it ends in negotiated peace, and what that looks like.
The limiting factor for US support to Ukraine, the Republican senator J.D. Vance argued in Munich, is ânot money, itâs munitions.â
We donât make enough munitions to support a war in eastern Europe, a war in the Middle East and potentially contingency in East Asia. So the United States is fundamentally limited.
Europe needs to ‘wake up’ to US pivot, Republican senator says in Munich
Speaking on stage, J.D. Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio, said that âDonald Trump was maybe the best president at deterring Russia in a generation.â
He added:
On the question of European security: I think thereâs a fundamental issue here that Europe really has to wake up to.
And I offer this in the spirit of friendship, not in the spirit of criticism. Because no, I donât think that we should pull out of Nato, and no, I donât think that we should abandon Europe. But yes, I think that we should pivot.
The United States has to focus more on East Asia, that is going to be the future of American foreign policy for the next forty years.
And Europe has to wake up to that fact.
Asked how he sees his proposed security pact, David Lammy said:
There are a number of issues. Procurement and joint and shared procurement, remains a significant challenge. And there does need to be complementarity across Europe.
We should not be replicating in one country what another country can do.
Clearly, our industrial capacity needs work. There is industrial capacity currently in the UK, with important companies like BAE Systems working there.
Again, that will have to be a shared endeavour. And some of that endeavour, of course, will always continue to be transatlantic, working with our American partners.
So I think that there are, in fact, significant areas, where we can work together.
And going forward, just as we came together to determine the rules that should govern our global system after the Second World War, when we think about AI, when we think about quantum, when we think about advances in biotech, again, that takes shared endeavour. And weâll have to do that at speed.
You know, sometimes, Europe can feel rather sluggish and bureaucratic. We will have to do that at speed. The urgency of war in Europe, I hope, reminds us of that fact.
British shadow foreign secretary calls for UK-EU security pact
David Lammy, the British shadow foreign secretary, said on stage at the Munich Security Conference that he wants a new security pact between the EU and the UK.
He said:
Of course Iâm hoping that there is a general election this year and I have the privilege of becoming the UK foreign secretary, because itâs absolutely fundamental that the United Kingdom and Europe have the closest of relationships and the Brexit era is over, the situation is settled.
And what my party is proposing is a new EU-UK security pact. And itâs a pact that is effectively built on the fact that we obviously have war here in Europe.
But the truth is, and itâs important that we summon up to the room the courage of Alexei Navalny â what it reminds is that not withstanding that war, Russia will continue to be a threat for Europe for months, years, perhaps a generation more.
And that means that the defence capability of the UK, alongside our partners in France particularly representing about 50% of Europeâs defence capability, but also the intelligence capability of the Five Eyes system in partnership with the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, is absolutely essential, and is why we need now a new security pact.
Now, that security pact is not to rival Nato, it is to run in parallel with Nato.
Ricarda Lang, co-chair of Germanyâs Alliance 90/The Greens, said at the Munich Security Conference that she grew up with the notion of the end of history but that this has changed dramatically over the past years.
âFor us, as Europe, this is the question: how can we strengthen our democracy?â she said.
Internally, Europe needs to come closer together, she said.
In terms of security, the question of how to support Ukraine âis of the utmost importance,â she stressed. The question of whether democracies prevail is linked to whether Ukraine prevails, according to Lang.
The first panel this morning has an interesting lineup: it includes J.D. Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio, Ricarda Lang, co-chair of the Alliance 90/The Greens in Germany, David Lammy, the British shadow foreign secretary, , and Priyanka Chaturvedi, deputy leader of the Shiv Sena party in Indiaâs parliament.
Welcome to the blog
Good morning and welcome back to a special edition of the Europe blog, coming to you from the Munich Security Conference.
Itâs the third and last day of the conference, which for decades has brought together key policymakers from around the globe to Munich for debates on security.
Questions over the future of western assistance to Ukraine, the war between Israel and Hamas, and the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny dominated discussions in the historic Hotel Bayerischer Hof.
Today, discussions will continue, with speakers including Finlandâs president-elect Alexander Stubb, British shadow foreign secretary David Lammy and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
Stay tuned for updates.