»Clinically Cold« But Still Talking
Emmanuel Macron Is the Last European Leader Putin
Speaks With
Advisers to Emmanuel Macron say his conversation with
Vladimir Putin on Monday was frank and tough. The French president managed to
get a few promises from the Russian leader, but Paris is doubtful they will
hold.
By Britta
Sandberg in Paris
01.03.2022,
21.38 Uhr
The phone
conversation on Monday afternoon between French President Emmanuel Macron and
Vladimir Putin lasted 90 minutes. The may sound promising, since an
hour-and-a-half discussion is hardly a given when one participant has declared
war on Ukraine and the other has joined the European front that is imposing
tough sanctions on Russia. But the mood in the president’s office, Élysée
Palace, on Monday evening wasn’t overly optimistic.
"We keep trying to point out to Putin that there
are options other than war. And that our allies are encouraging us to do
so."
An adviser
to Macron
A Macron
adviser said that evening that it had been a very open, but also robust,
discussion – which likely means, when translated from the diplomatic
vernacular, that the conversation was rather confrontational and harsh. As had
been the case during Macron's previous visit to Moscow, the adviser said, the
French president found himself faced with a Russian leader who had become a
prisoner of his own worldview.
"We
keep trying to point out to Putin that there are options other than war,"
said the close adviser to Macron. "And that our allies are encouraging us
to do so." He said the French president had demonstrated his deep concern
and solemnity and that Macron pointed out to Putin everything that is at stake
geopolitically. He said the Russian president had responded to Macron in a very
"clinically cold" manner.
What
Promises from Putin Can Still Be Trusted?
Nevertheless,
Macron managed to extract a handful of promises from Putin, but Élysée
officials aren't certain they are worth much, adding that the situation will
have to be watched closely in the coming days. Macron called on Putin to cease
attacks on civilians and residential areas, to avoid damaging civilian
infrastructure and to refrain from attacking Ukraine’s main transport arteries,
particularly the road leading from the south to Kiev. According to the official
communiqué from the Élysée, the Russian president confirmed his readiness to
comply with all three points.
Both
parties agreed to maintain contact in the coming days - a pledge that makes
Macron the only European leader Putin is still speaking to. The two presidents
last telephoned with each other on Saturday.
From the
very start of his presidency, Macron has tried to build a special relationship
with Putin. Just a few weeks after his election in May 2017, he received the
Russian president in the magnificent halls of Versailles. Two years later,
without first consulting other European leaders, he invited Putin to the
presidential vacation home at Fort Brégançon on the Côte d’Azur. A G-7 summit
took place a few days later in Biarritz - an event Russia has been excluded
from since annexing Crimea in 2014. At the time, many viewed the meeting on the
eve of the summit as a deliberate provocation.
Macron
responded by saying: "The more we do to get Russia closer to Europe again,
the better it will be. I am convinced of that." Russia is part of Europe
and cannot be left to China’s influence, he told critics.
But Macron,
too, has noticed in recent weeks that the Putin of 2022 is quite a bit
different from the Russian leader he invited to Versailles barely five years
ago. After an almost six-hour conversation with the Russian president in Moscow
on Feb. 7, Macron told journalists traveling with him on the return flight that
he had witnessed a changed man in the Kremlin. He said Putin had become more
unyielding and rigid. He said Putin had seemed isolated.
Still, the
Élysee remained optimistic for quite some time, counting on the success of
Macron’s persistent diplomatic efforts until Feb. 21, the day Putin officially
recognized the self-proclaimed "people’s republics” of Donetsk and
Luhansk. Just a day before that recognition, a Macron adviser had said that
they were slowly, step by step, changing the course of events. "We are
creating a diplomatic prospect the Kremlin will accept.” That, though, quickly
became moot.
Diplomats
at Élysee Palace also emphasized that the ongoing discussions were being held
at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who Macron speaks
with on a regular basis. France supports Ukraine financially, logistically and
with arms deliveries, even though the French government so far hasn’t disclosed
which weapons are involved.
Two things
are especially important to the French: They stress repeatedly that all of
Macron’s initiatives are closely coordinated with France’s European partners
and the United States. And under no circumstances does the French president
want to be suspected of exploiting the war in Ukraine in the midst of an
election campaign to raise his own profile on the international stage.
Macron also
feels that the current crisis, as well as the pandemic that preceded it, is
affirmation of his demands for a more self-confident, sovereign Europe that has
sufficient security resources. Macron’s foreign policy advisers say that the
current crisis will permanently change Europe’s relationship with Russia. The
basic strategic conditions on European soil are in the process of undergoing
massive change, they say.
The result
is that, with around 40 days left before the presidential elections on April 10
and 24, Macron’s old demands for greater European sovereignty, along with
greater coordination on foreign and security policy, are more pressing than
ever. "One lesson from this crisis will be that we need to regroup and
reorganize within Europe,” a presidential adviser to Macron said on Monday.
Closer to
His Goals
As absurd
as it may seem, shortly before the election in France, it is a war that is now
promoting the European policy goals Macron first set out in his speech at the
Sorbonne in the autumn of 2019 – and not some understanding on the part of
other Europeans. And it is true that the "strategic autonomy of Europe” he
has repeatedly called for, along with the new security architecture for the
continent, have come closer to reality in recent weeks than ever before.
The
situation is serious, and it could change or even escalate at any moment,
officials at Élysee Palace said on Monday evening. A few hours earlier, Putin
had dictated his terms for a cease-fire while speaking to Macron. They included
Ukraine’s renunciation of any prospect of membership in NATO, recognition of
annexed Crimea as part of Russia as well as Ukraine’s demilitarization and
neutrality.
On Twitter
afterward, foreign policy expert Bruno Tertrais, deputy director of the
Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris, asked: Why didn’t Putin just go
ahead and wish for a pony too?
Macron rejected each point.
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