00:00Ulrika Franke is a security and defence analyst with the European Council on
00:04Foreign Relations. Welcome to DW. So can European leaders force the US and indeed
00:11Russia to take them into account? What leverage do they have? I mean forcing
00:17them is definitely difficult but the leverage indeed is that the Europeans
00:21will be the one asked to secure any kind of deal, right? That's what we just heard
00:26this whole discussion about sending troops, not sending troops, is it
00:30premature to talk about. The reason why we are talking about this is because the
00:34US has said well we may be negotiating a deal but you Europeans will have to
00:38secure it and then of course you know in that fashion is unacceptable and and
00:44that is how the Europeans will eventually have to get a seat at the
00:47table because if they're being asked to secure any kind of deal they will need
00:50to be involved in it. Okay but a big worry must be that Russia and the US do
00:55a deal, Washington withdraws from Europe, Russia rebuilds its war machine and then
01:01picks up where it left off, leaving Europe to keep a peace that it
01:05had no part in negotiating. Absolutely, what you just described is the worst case
01:10scenario, the horror scenario and unfortunately one that is absolutely
01:13possible. Yes and this is exactly why we have, why we had the panic over the
01:18weekend during the Munich Security Conference, why there are now these talks
01:22in Paris that should go beyond the question of what to immediately do in
01:27Ukraine with regard to Ukraine but what Europe now needs to do is face the
01:32situation that the that the Americans have said we are no longer there to
01:36really secure the continent in the way that we've done over the last years and
01:40decades. You are on your own one way or another, I mean the details are still a
01:44bit unclear but Europe will have to step up and this is exactly the discussions
01:49we need so to avoid these worst-case scenarios where yeah the big powers are
01:54can do whatever they want and Europeans are just standing there saying well
01:58unfortunately we don't have any means to defend ourselves, defend our interests,
02:02defend our allies. Let's talk about the idea of Europe stepping up because
02:07Emmanuel Macron not that long ago suggested the idea of a European army
02:12and everyone turned around and said no no no no no calm down. So is that the
02:18direction that we are heading in if the United States withdraws? I don't think
02:25so. So the European army is a concept that has been around for years and
02:29decades. I mean we discussed this in the 1950s indeed under Emmanuel Macron. This
02:35was a debate now. Volodymyr Zelensky this weekend in Munich held a very strong
02:40speech and indeed mentioned the idea of common European armed forces four times
02:45I think which was really surprising. The question is always what exactly does
02:50this mean? What are we talking about? Are we talking about additional forces? Are
02:53we talking about European forces instead of national ones? If it's the latter who
02:58decides where to send them, when to use them. This is a very long-term thing. This
03:05is something I would say comes after some kind of United States of Europe. So
03:09it's not where I would put most of the effort. It's fine to have this as a kind
03:14of common goal eventually. But let's be very clear. The European army is not
03:19what's going to help us in the next two, three, five years against Russia that may
03:25attack Europe and will help us to face the situation that the US is
03:31basically withdrawing from Europe. Okay so let's talk about that then. So
03:37what's the answer to the next two, three, five years in terms of a European
03:46security without the United States? Yeah no I got that. The answer really is for
03:52the Europeans to do much more themselves at the national level and of course yes
03:58at the common European level. I'm just saying like this is not a time to think
04:01about the color of the uniforms of the European army. So what we need now
04:05is increased defense spending, building up the European industrial military base.
04:11So we need more equipment. We probably need more troops. This is a national
04:15question of where and how to get them. We need more common European training and
04:21common European coordination absolutely. So all of these and the problem
04:27is that all of these recipes these are well known. This is something that has
04:30been said not even just for the last three years and the war with regard to
04:34the war in Ukraine but even for the last 10 years. So it's not so much I
04:38would argue that we need main new ideas. There's no kind of silver bullet that
04:44can come around and we say okay this is the answer. The answers are more or less
04:47known and it is to do more, to do more individually, to do more together and
04:52that will include increasing defense spending quite a bit. But it really is I
04:57mean we're kind of getting to five after twelve rather than five to twelve. Thanks
05:01for talking us through that Ulrike. Ulrike Franke from the European Council on
05:04Foreign Relations. Thank you.
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