Europe rebuffs new ‘security architecture’

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AFP) — Europe pushed back Friday on any United States efforts to rewrite the continent’s “security architecture” as part of a potential agreement with Russia to end the war in Ukraine.

US President Donald Trump on Thursday predicted a “very big” deal with Moscow involving not only Ukraine but “all of Europe,” in remarks likely to fuel fresh fears of a pivot towards the Kremlin.

At the same time, his envoy and son-in-law Jared Kushner said Washington was working on “a broader European security architecture” ahead of mediating talks next week between Ukraine and Russia in Abu Dhabi.

That suggestion has set alarm bells ringing for US allies in Europe who have long rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin’s desire to overhaul the arrangements underpinning Europe’s security.

“We already have a European security architecture in place,” European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told journalists in Warsaw.

“The problem remains that Russia keeps breaking the treaties that underpin it. NATO posed no threat to Russia in 2021, and it poses no threat to Russia at the moment. Putin does not have a veto over European security.”

She added that “any agreement, in order to be implemented, will require the European Union to be part of it.”

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski echoed her, saying “an arrangement about the future of Ukraine and of Europe above our heads would not just be unwise. It is actually impossible.”

His Ukrainian counterpart Andriy Sybiga insisted that Moscow “cannot be the security guarantor for the European continent.”