On Thursday 27 March, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that Ukraine’s allies, who met in Paris on Thursday, had unanimously decided against any lifting of the sanctions imposed on Russia. Moscow has made the lifting of restrictions on Russian agricultural and fertiliser exports a precondition for a partial ceasefire.
“We unanimously agreed that now is not the time to lift any sanctions. There can be no policy of lifting sanctions until there is an unambiguous peace”, announced Emmanuel Macron at the end of the meeting, which was attended by the leaders of 23 Member States (but not Hungary), together with Ukraine, representatives of six third countries (but no Americans), the European Council, the European Commission and NATO. Mr Macron said that the participants were determined to maintain economic pressure, particularly on the ‘shadow fleet’ and industrial sectors.
“We are going to keep up the pressure on Russia. It was very clear that the sanctions stay in place”, added the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. According to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, lifting the sanctions would be “a serious mistake”.
The French President also announced that the European Commission had decided to speed up disbursements of the loans agreed at the G7 “to enable Ukraine in particular to finance its artillery purchases even more quickly”.
The parties also underlined their support for the Ukrainian army and worked on the preparation and monitoring of a possible ceasefire. Mr Macron announced that a Franco-British mission would be visiting “Ukraine in the next few days”, with regard to security guarantees. If the proposal to deploy European contingents in Ukraine “does not meet with unanimity”, there will be “a reassurance force of several European countries” in the event of peace, he promised.
However, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, there are still “many questions” and “few answers” about this potential deployment. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)