PARIS — Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk piled pressure on other European leaders to massively ramp up defense spending and not clash with the U.S. on Tuesday as he flew to Paris for an emergency summit devoted to Ukraine’s future and European rearmament.
“I will ask the prime ministers gathered in Paris today directly, are they ready to make a serious decision?” Tusk said on his way to the gathering, referring to defense spending. “Poland is unfortunately an exception to the rule in Europe at the moment. This absolutely has to change.”
The comments from Tusk, whose country is the top military spender in NATO at 4.7 percent of gross domestic product, come as European countries scramble to formulate security guarantees for Ukraine and shore up the continent’s ability to deter Russia under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump.
EU and U.K. leaders were left reeling over the weekend as top U.S. officials announced they were starting bilateral talks with Russia to end the war in Ukraine — but without participation from Europe and Kyiv.
That came as U.S. Vice President JD Vance launched a populist broadside against the bloc’s democracies during the Munich Security Conference — raising questions over whether Europe and the U.S. are headed for a divorce over values.
Despite growing worries in many European capitals that they can no longer rely on the U.S. for defense, Tusk was adamant that Washington remains a security lynchpin for the continent.
In remarks made in Warsaw before flying to Paris, Tusk repeatedly stressed the importance of maintaining a common front between Europe and the U.S.
“Regardless of what anyone has to say to each other sometimes in brutal words … there is no reason for allies arguing among themselves not to find a common language on the most important issues,” Tusk said, adding: “That’s why I will be in Paris to forestall all possible voices that would like to introduce some kind of competitive game between the European Union and the United States, because it doesn’t make any sense.”
But with the U.S. demanding much higher military spending from Europe, and leaving no space for European countries in the talks it aims to hold with Russia, Tusk underlined that the continent will have to dramatically boost defense budgets.
“If we, Europeans, fail to spend big on defence now, we will be forced to spend 10 times more if we don’t prevent a wider war,” Tusk said on X.
Arriving in Paris, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen struck a similar tone, writing on X that “we need an urgency mindset” and a “surge in defense” and “we need both of them now.”
Differing views
The informal meeting is gathering leaders from France, Poland, Germany, Italy, Spain, the U.K., the Netherlands and Denmark, as well as senior EU officials.
European NATO countries are now poring over a questionnaire from Washington that asks them to spell out what sort of security guarantees they are willing to provide Ukraine, including whether they will deploy ground troops to enforce a peace deal, what sort of spending they can commit, and what expectations they have of the U.S. to allow for such a deployment.
Trump has made clear that U.S. troops will not be part of any post-ceasefire force in Ukraine, and has also ruled out allowing Ukraine to join NATO — both key security requests from Kyiv to protect the country from another Russian invasion.
Although the leaders arriving in Paris are all strong supporters of Ukraine, there are divisions over how actively to participate in any military mission to the country.
Tusk ruled out sending any Polish troops to Ukraine, saying his country would help with logistics. Macron, who originally raised the idea, is for sending soldiers.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer raised the stakes of the meeting on Sunday night by announcing that his country was willing to send soldiers to Ukraine. Like Tusk, Starmer underlined that the United States should maintain a central role in European defense and Ukraine’s future.
There is movement among other countries.
Germany will not shy away from contributing ground troops in Ukraine if the framework for such a move is given, a German defense ministry spokesperson said on Monday.
However, on Sunday German Chancellor Olaf Scholz insisted that European countries need a seat at the table in any talks about Ukraine.
“There will be no security guarantees that we have not developed and accepted ourselves,” he said.
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