PARIS, February 14. /TASS/. Thierry Mariani, French member of the European Parliament (MEP), told TASS in an interview about the nervous reaction from the European Parliament to the recent phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump.
"During the plenary session in Strasbourg, there was a sense of panic and unease—concerns that the EU would be sidelined. That’s kind of strange, because the European Union is seeking to take part in negotiations at any cost," the lawmaker noted.
The phone talks between the two leaders served as a kind of reality check for the EU, he argued. "Europe has long had illusions. Over the past three years, Brussels has been explaining that Ukraine will win, that the EU will support it till the end, and that it will never give up fighting. All of a sudden, over the past few days, the EU had to face the reality which is that we cannot do anything on our own and that we just sit and wait for the US to act before formulating our position," he lamented.
It's Mariani's view that the EU’s participation in potential talks is not the biggest thing right now. "The question is not whether the EU will be invited but rather whether there will be peace at all," the MEP added as he hailed the Putin-Trump phone conversation as "great news."
In a telephone conversation on February 12, Putin and Trump discussed, among other things, the prospects for resolving the situation in Ukraine. According to the Kremlin, the US president expressed support for an early ceasefire and a peaceful resolution. Putin, for his part, emphasized the need to address the root causes of the conflict and agreed with Trump that a lasting settlement could be achieved through peace talks, the Russian presidential press service highlighted.