Thread by @jgotkowska

1/THREAD #MSC2023
My impressions from the Munich Security Conference: The 🇩🇪🇫🇷 couple with Chancellor Scholz and President Macron set the scene (with President Zelensky) during the first day. All in all a very telling setup with more hawkishness in tone but old ideas behind.

2/🇩🇪Germany. Chancellor Scholz had a sharper speech than usual on the war, Ukraine and Russia - pushing back against public appeals in Germany to stop German weapons deliveries. Scholz: “Putin’s revisionism cannot win, without justice there will be no just peace.”

3/But old ideas came back: “there need to be a balance between support for Ukraine and NATO not engaging into the war. Scholz fears “uncharted waters” and a conflict with a nuclear power.
To me - with a new, harsher tone, strategically Scholz stays were he was in the past months.

4/Scholz fired also some shots against those countries who want to do more: “prudence ahead of proactiveness, unity ahead of solo steps”.
It is obvious whom he aims at. From CEE perspective it is obvious that if we would stick to this, Ukraine would have already lost this war.

5/On the other hand, the new 🇩🇪 defence minister seems to partly go against Scholz’ narratives. According to Pistorius: “🇺🇦 must win this war. 🇩🇪 needs to spend 2% of GDP for defence (Scholz talks about this too), setting red lines on weapons deliveries in public is a bad idea.”

6/it will be interesting to see to what extent Pistorius will be an independent player in the 🇩🇪 security policy. It is the Chancellory which decides on weapons deliveries and the Finance Ministry on the defence budget. But Pistorius can do a lot to improve the Bundeswehr.

7/🇫🇷France. Macron’s speech sounded as if the President rethought some of his previous policy ideas. He was tough on Russia, saying it didn’t digested the end of the empire, and underlined the need of more weapon deliveries for Ukraine in short term.

https://twitter.com/mij_europe/status/1626611580396875782?s=61&t=7zRnJCza0K_FT7AagfYvHQ

8/But Macron doesn’t believe in regime change in Russia and thinks that it is possible to create “a new normal acceptable for them and sustainable for us” through negotiations and avoidance of total Russian defeat.

9/How to reach a sustainable peace with Putin’s Russia and adapt European security architecture according to these lines is questionable.
BTW Macron gave a much more outspoken interview for domestic audience while coming back from Munich.

https://twitter.com/mij_europe/status/1627264716438491137?s=61&t=7zRnJCza0K_FT7AagfYvHQ

10/The UK. It was refreshing to listen to @RishiSunak talking about Ukraine’s right to defend itself while answering questions regarding long range weapons deliveries for Ukraine and talking about already now providing training for 🇺🇦 fighter jet pilots.

11/🇺🇸 It was Vice-President Harris who gave a speech on behalf of Biden administration. The most notable was that the US will held accountable members of Russia’s forces and Russian officials for crimes committed against humanity in Ukraine.
state.gov/crimes-against…

12/But the highlight coming from the US this week will be the Biden speech in Warsaw on Tuesday afternoon. This will be the second time the US President pay a visit to 🇵🇱 within a year since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

13/🇵🇱 Speaking about Poland - one of the biggest European supporters of 🇺🇦 seemed to be sidelined at the #MSC2023, with no Polish representatives present in the discussions on the main stage. At the same time both PM Morawiecki and President Duda were in Munich.

14/PM Morawiecki took part in a side townhall event, President Duda met with Chancellor Scholz and President Macron at the sidelines of the #MSC2023 for the Weimar meeting. A pity that 🇩🇪🇫🇷 or the MSC were not ready to have a Weimar panel at the conference.

15/With the Polish critical stance on the speed/quantity of military support coming from biggest Western countries and with the European talk about the centre of gravity moving east, some clearly didn’t want to have the Polish voice speaking loudly from the #MSC2023 main scene.😉

16/I will end with what 🇪🇪 PM @kajakallas said at the end of #MSC2023: “Since 24th February I have heard so many times from my West European colleagues - we were naive, we should have listened to you.”
And now I hear from them: “Now we know better”.

17/@kajakallas concluded #MSC2023 with a question:
“Why do you know better now when you didn’t know before? Why do we need to use the same track that didn’t work before? Every next time Russia takes a bolder step and now we need to cut this cycle.”

18/There are a few other interesting observations from #MSC2023, but as they are not immediately related to Ukraine, Russia and the war I will stop here. END

PS. I will add here some interesting voices from the #MSC2023
The President of Lithuania:

https://twitter.com/gitanasnauseda/status/1627332487675518978

A thread on Scholz speech - in German

https://twitter.com/fuecks/status/1626585468178698246

The US public stance towards Germany

https://twitter.com/lianafix/status/1626964853687459843

🇺🇦 foreign minister to the point

https://twitter.com/rbsw/status/1626955935372410880

Those “warmongers” from the CEE… 😂

https://twitter.com/holger_stark/status/1626931336303763457

Sanna Marin again on „diplomatic solutions” - wideo in English

https://twitter.com/br24/status/1626952334029750272