Debate: Russian aggression against Ukraine
Date: TUESDAY, 1 MARCH 2022
Speaker: Josep Borrell Fontelles
Language: FR

Dear Members of the European Parliament, I will try to share with you my thoughts on the meaning of the tragic events that we are living and the provisional lessons that we can draw from them, especially for the Common Security and Defence Policy, which I had the honour to try to develop and which remains an intergovernmental policy – a policy which is yet in the hands of the Member States, but cannot be implemented efficiently without strong cooperation with the Commission’s competences.  I think this is the moment in which the geopolitical Europe is being born. C’est l’acte de naissance de l’Europe géopolitique, le moment où nous prenons conscience des défis auxquels nous faisons face, le moment pendant lequel l’Europe doit faire face à ses responsabilités, le moment où nous prenons conscience que, pour la première fois depuis la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, un pays en envahit un autre et ce pays a l’arme nucléaire, ce qui augmente sa capacité d’intimidation. Cela me rend malade de penser à l’analogie historique entre ces événements et le début de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. But it is really the return of tragedy which Europe is being confronted with today. The return of tragedy, far from frightening us, should galvanise us. First because it belies the idea that the European project had lost its momentum because the horizon of war has faded, when unfortunately not. This reminds us that evil, tragedy and war never fade away. This is about the relationship with war, with the use of force, with violence, that we have been debating here for years to find out if Europe can counter. This is why in recent years we have talked more about defence issues, studying the past, and we have begun to set up joint military programmes. It is why the European Parliament itself has voted to set up the European Defence Fund and the Member States have created the European Peace Facility that we are now mobilising in order to provide arms to Ukraine.  The European Council, in the next weeks, will adopt the Strategic Compass and, with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, we must amplify our reflection, adjust our means and anticipate our responses because one of the lessons that we have to learn from the invasion of Ukraine is that, more than ever, Europe must think strategically about itself, its environment and the world. This is no longer a luxury, it is a necessity. Europe must amplify its reflection on security issues and the European Parliament has had an important role to play in this regard.  We need to think about the instrument of coercion, retaliation and counterattack in the face of reckless adversaries, because all we need to understand is that to make peace, we need to be two – but to make war it is enough to be one. This is exactly what Mr Putin is telling us, and that’s why we have to increase our deterrence capacity a lot. We need to increase our deterrence capacity in order to prevent war.  It’s clear that our deterrence has not been strong enough to stop Mr Putin’s aggression. But since this aggression has started, we have reacted in the last few days in a way that Mr Putin didn’t expect. We are showing him that we will never sacrifice our freedom and the freedom of others on the altar of our well-being and prosperity. Being President of this Parliament in 2007, I had the opportunity to tell Mr Putin this eye-to-eye, on the aftermath of the killing of the journalist, Anna Politkovskaya. I told him we are not going to change human rights for your gas, and this is the moment to repeat and to act on that.  We will not share in that and we will not abandon the defence of our human rights and freedoms just because we are more or less dependent on Russia, and we have to start working quickly – as the Commission has proposed – in order to cancel this dependency.  Last Saturday, after having held another Foreign Affairs Council and attending the debate in the  European Union Council, I was talking with you, President Michel, and you said to me: ‘Are we doing everything we can? Is there something more that we can do? Is that enough?’ I was so, so powerless. You told me: ‘Think, do, act. We have to push Member States to adopt a decision on Swift and to take Russia out of the financial system’ and ‘think about how we can arm Ukraine – not country by country, one after another, in an uncoordinated manner’. You encouraged me to talk with the Member States again, and in a few hours we agreed on using the European Peace Facility in order to bring financial support and coordinate Member States on arming the Ukrainian army and people. In less than 24 hours another taboo had fallen.  The President of the Commission, immediately showing strong leadership, started working together to get an agreement with our international partners in order to make it possible to switch off Russia from the financial system. And you know what? Now, half of the reserves of the Central Bank of Russia are completely out of their control. They are frozen. Can you imagine? This is a coercion capacity. Three days ago it was impossible, and now it’s possible, and they are starting to feel the consequences in terms of inflation and the fall of their currency.  Yes, we have capacities. We have mobilised these capacities and we have to continue doing so. On putting together the capacities of the Member States and the European Union, I want to remind you that the European Peace Facility is not part of the budget that you voted on; it is another budget, an intergovernmental fund managed by the Member States because we claimed that we in the European Union were a peaceful force and we cannot provide arms to anyone else. Yes, we can. Yes, we have done this.  In the next budget, think about it. When you vote on the next budget, use your budgetary capacity. You have the budgetary capacity of this institution to put down the ways and means to face the next crisis and the next Russian aggression.  Nous sommes en train de travailler au niveau international pour bâtir une coalition pour condamner la Russie au sein des Nations unies. Elle n’a pas eu un seul vote en sa faveur: tout le monde a voté contre, si l’on excepte quelques abstentions très significatives. Ha habido países tradicionalmente aliados de Rusia que no han votado a su favor: se han abstenido. Ahora hay que construir una coalición internacional para que, en la próxima Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas sea el mundo entero el que condene al agresor; nadie puede mirar de lado. Cuando un potente agresor agrede sin justificación alguna a un vecino mucho más débil, nadie puede invocar la resolución pacífica de los conflictos. Nadie puede poner en pie de igualdad al agredido y al agresor. Nos acordaremos de aquellos que en este momento solemne no estén a nuestro lado.  Sí, hemos utilizado nuestra capacidad coercitiva, la capacidad de imponer, no necesariamente utilizando las armas. Cuando digo que Europa tiene que ser un  Esto es, creo, señoras y señores diputados, la lección más importante que tenemos que extraer de estas trágicas circunstancias: no podemos seguir confiando en que apelar al Estado de Derecho y desarrollar relaciones comerciales va a convertir al mundo en un lugar pacífico donde todo el mundo evolucionará hacia la democracia representativa. Las fuerzas del mal, las fuerzas que pugnan por seguir utilizando la violencia física como una forma de resolver los conflictos, siguen vivas. Y, frente a ellas, tenemos que demostrar una capacidad de acción mucho más poderosa, mucho más consistente y mucho más unida que la que hemos sido capaces de demostrar hasta ahora. Hemos hecho mucho y hemos, sin duda, asombrado al mundo y sorprendido a Putin con una capacidad de reacción rápida y unida. Hay que seguir por este camino, y este acto, este momento parlamentario en que ustedes, con sus aplausos, quieren dar ánimos a las instituciones europeas para seguir por el camino que hemos emprendido, puede ser el momento en que los europeos entiendan que el mundo en el que viven es un mundo peligroso y, para hacerle frente, hace falta que refuercen su Unión. La pandemia abrió la puerta a acciones innovadoras. La pandemia nos ha impulsado por el camino de unirnos más para hacer frente a los virus. Este momento trágico debe impulsarnos a unirnos más para hacer frente a aquellas acciones humanas que amenazan también la vida, la seguridad y la prosperidad de todos.