At the beginning of 2024, Ukraine signed so-called security agreements with the three leading countries of the Group of Seven and NATO – Great Britain, Germany and France. These agreements should ensure Ukraine’s security until it joins the Alliance. The signing was agreed upon during the Vilnius NATO summit in the summer of 2023.
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How do the German, French and British agreements differ, and why negotiations with the United States were stuck at the initial stage, Evropeyskaya Pravda told.
The agreement with France repeats the ambitious British formulations almost word for word. Including the fact that France takes on legal obligations to securely support Ukraine. But Germany did not have enough courage for such a formula, so Olaf Scholz signed an agreement that talks about security agreements with Ukraine. The difference is quite cosmetic, but for Berlin it turned out to be fundamental. More importantly, Berlin did not have the courage to talk about Ukraine’s future membership in NATO.
Together with NATO, references to the EU were also removed from some paragraphs. However, according to EN sources, there is no danger here.
We decided that it would be incorrect to mention “Ukraine’s future membership in the EU”, crossing out only NATO. That’s why they didn’t mention a single one. But this does not send any signal; the chancellor remains a supporter of Ukraine’s accession to the EU, explains one of EuroPravda’s sources.
Macron, like Sunak, declared a political commitment to long-term allocation of money for military support of Ukraine in volumes comparable to British ones. In 2024, France, in particular, plans to allocate “up to 3 billion euros” in defense support.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has made a political commitment to transfer weapons worth 7.1 billion euros to Ukraine in 2024! It remains to add that Germany’s GDP is almost 1.5 times larger than France’s. So the ratio of promised defense support is clearly in favor of Germany.
The German agreement has several unique clauses. For example, Berlin has detailed in the agreement that it will devote efforts and resources to mine clearance, and has also made nuclear safety a priority. And the German agreement turned out to be more ambitious in its commitments to support Ukraine in creating the so-called “tribunal for Putin.” Neither France nor Britain decided to do this.
The main thing is not to overestimate the importance of agreed upon security treaties. They are important, but they are not universal, and they are not a substitute for NATO membership. This, in fact, is what is discussed in these agreements themselves.
At the same time, none of the three agreements provides for ratification. This doesn’t make them any less effective. But, for example, if in France after the elections the government, the president and the configuration of parliament radically change, then the new government can easily say that it does not owe anyone anything. One of the EN sources claims that this happened because of the US position. They say that Washington insisted that there would be no ratification of security agreements, realizing that it would not pass them through Congress.
Munich 2024 became a wake-up call for Ukraine.
Source: Racurs
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.