On the thousandth day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky received a standing ovation from the European Parliament on Tuesday 19 November for his courage and that of his people, who, in the opinion of the European Parliament’s main political forces, are fighting to defend their sovereignty, international law and European values.
Speaking by video conference, Mr Zelensky urged MEPs not to forget what the EU can achieve when it remains united. He urged them to turn words into deeds by preventing Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ from continuing to export oil and by confiscating Russian frozen assets in the EU.
The Ukrainian president also hoped that 2025 would be “the year of peace”.
During the speeches, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola and most of the political group leaders - with the exception of the far-right ‘Patriots for Europe’ group - reiterated the EU’s pledge to continue to “stand by Ukraine for as long as necessary”, regardless of how US policy develops with Donald Trump’s return to power. Peace, freedom and a rules-based multilateral order are what is at stake in this war, emphasised Ms Metsola. And she stressed that any peace negotiations concerning Ukraine would have to include Ukraine.
To ensure that the Ukrainian army is victorious on the battlefield, Manfred Weber (EPP, German) and Valérie Hayer (Renew Europe, French) recommended that Kyiv should be able to use the weapons supplied by the West on Russian territory too. We must provide Ukraine with “everything it needs”, stressed Iratxe García Pérez (S&D, Spanish). Terry Reintke (Greens/EFA, German) said that the election of Donald Trump should act as an electroshock to convince Europeans to step up their military support for Ukraine, give it “security guarantees” on the continent and end its dependence on Russian fossil fuels.
“Some people in this Parliament claim to be pacifists. Let’s be clear: they are Vladimir Putin’s allies. What they are advocating under the guise of peace is nothing more than the law of the strongest”, criticised Ms Hayer, no doubt referring to the ‘mission for peace’ launched in July by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
A representative of Mr Orbán’s Fidesz party in the European Parliament, the Hungarian Kinga Gál (PfE), considered that Russia’s military aggression constituted “a violation of international law” and of Ukraine’s sovereignty. Opposed to “any measure leading to the escalation” of the conflict, she called for the start of ceasefire negotiations as soon as possible.
With the election of Donald Trump, we are “more likely to achieve this”, she said. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)