Moreover, the lawmakers added, the U.S. foreign policy shift means EU member countries have become Ukraine’s primary allies and must therefore increase military aid.
With U.S. President Donald Trump having aligned his country with Russia, the EU is facing its single most existential threat since World War II. MEPs in Strasbourg on Wednesday laid out how Europe can fortify itself.
In a separate non-binding resolution on European defense, which passed by a margin of 419 votes to 204 with 46 abstentions, the Parliament demanded that member countries and the European Commission beef up the bloc’s defense capabilities amid Trump’s continuous threats to diminish U.S. engagement with NATO.
Since the start of his second term on Jan. 20 Trump has pressured Ukraine to engage in peace talks, among other things by suspending military aid and intelligence sharing. The U.S. president agreed to resume both after Ukraine on Tuesday agreed to a 30-day ceasefire; Russia has yet to respond to the deal.
To counter the Trump administration’s threats, MEPs on Tuesday pushed in the non-binding resolution for a “fully capable European Pillar of NATO able to act autonomously whenever needed.”
That would mean using NATO’s command structures to run operations among European member countries without U.S. involvement, leading Socialist MEP Sven Mixer argued.
