Tusk says Europe aware ties with US have entered 'new phase'
by AFP Staff Writers
Warsaw (AFP) Feb 17, 2025
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Monday Europe was aware its ties with the United States had entered a "new phase", after he attended an emergency meeting on security with fellow European leaders in Paris.

The meeting Monday had been hastily arranged to address Washington's shock policy shift on the war in Ukraine.

US President Donald Trump sidelined Kyiv and its European backers last week when he called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to talk about starting negotiations to end the nearly three-year conflict.

Hosted by President Emmanuel Macron, the meeting gathered the leaders of France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark, as well as the heads of the European Council, the European Commission and NATO.

"Everyone at this meeting is aware that transatlantic relations, the NATO alliance and our friendship with the United States have entered a new phase. We all see that," Tusk told reporters in Paris.

"I don't think anyone should be surprised -- and today's meeting also confirmed this -- that our European partners are aware that the time has come for much greater European defence capacity," he added.

"Here too there was agreement, unanimity, that an increase -- a significant increase -- in defence spending was something absolutely necessary."

Tusk said "there is no point getting irritated when our ally the US says spend more, get stronger, become more resilient. These words absolutely have a basis in fact".

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