German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron both emphasized the necessity of security guarantees for Ukraine over NATO membership status while speaking at the second European Political Community Summit (EPC) in Moldova on June 1.
Scholz said that Ukraine and its allies are still "very far away" from any kind of peace agreement, stressing that security guarantees for Ukraine should take precedence over NATO membership at the moment, Reuters reported.
"Given the current situation, it is not about establishing membership ... We all have to focus on how we as individuals can support Ukraine," he said.
Regarding potential guarantees that could be provided to Ukraine, Sholz said: "They must be designed in such a way that they give Ukraine the security it needs against the danger of being attacked, that they also stabilize Ukraine at the same time, ..., and of course it is always part of the security guarantee that it is taken seriously."
Macron also said on June 1 that he favored "stronger, concrete very clear security guarantees" for Ukraine by NATO member countries at the upcoming NATO Summit in Lithuania in July, Reuters reported.
"We have to give a long-term perspective to Ukraine. It is imperative that the Vilnius summit gives these immediate guarantees," Macron said.
The French president did not provide details on what those guarantees would look like, but said they "needed to be somewhere between what security guarantees Israel receives and full NATO membership," Reuters wrote.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky discussed security guarantees and EU and NATO membership as part of his agenda at the EPC summit in Moldova.
"I think security guarantees are important not only for Ukraine. They are also important for Moldova because Russia is carrying out aggression in Ukraine and there is a potential threat of aggression in other parts of Europe," Zelensky said.
Earlier in April, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that "the first step toward any membership of Ukraine to NATO is to ensure that Ukraine prevails."
Fedir Venislavskyi, the Ukrainian president's representative in the Verkhovna Rada, said on May 28 that the NATO was unlikely to grant Ukraine membership until the war with Russia is over.
Alexander Khrebet
