A German politician’s speech in Kyiv has elicited questions regarding whether NATO could come up with a plan to circumvent President-elect Donald Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine, according to Politico.
Friedrich Merz, the leader of Germany’s conservative opposition party, encouraged European countries to create an alliance and agree on a “common vision” for peace in Ukraine and come up with their own plan to end the war.
He said, “With the change of power in the U.S. there is a possibility we will have a new situation and we have to prepare for it. We have to create a common strategy” within Europe.
Efrem Lukatsky/Associated Press
Newsweek reached out to NATO for comment via a form on their website outside of business hours.
Newsweek has also reached out to Merz’ office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine for comment via email outside of business hours.
Newsweek also reached out to the Trump transition team for comment.
Merz’s proposition consists of forming a new contact group of Ukraine’s European allies, including Poland, France, and the UK, to coordinate a peace plan independent of the US’ ideas.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his support for this plan and wrote about Merz’s visit to Kyiv in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, “We discussed the need to increase military aid for the next year, every act of such support not only saves lives but also directly strengthens Ukraine’s position to achieve a just and lasting peace. We also talked about Ukraine’s integration into the EU, ensuring unity in Europe, and its role in strengthening Ukraine.
“I supported Mr. Merz’s idea of creating a Contact Group involving Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Poland to work towards restoring a just and lasting peace for Ukraine, while also proposing the inclusion of Denmark. We agreed on the importance of enhancing Ukraine’s long-range capabilities and extending an invitation to NATO, which could further strengthen our country. Achieving a just peace in Ukraine will not only restore security in Europe but will also have a significant impact on global security.”
Trump has previously said that he would end the war “within 24 hours” and cease all military aid to Ukraine once back in office.
His advisors have reportedly been coming up with a peace plan that would include freezing all conflict at the current frontlines and creating a demilitarized zone. Both countries would retain all of the territory they have seized in this ceasefire.
The president-elect’s team has reportedly discussed proposals to end the Russia-Ukraine war that involve taking NATO membership for Ukraine off of the table, according to Reuters.
Zelensky recently posted on X about this and how he plans to continue pushing for entry into the international alliance.
He wrote, “Regarding NATO invitation, it is premature to speak about it with President Trump, because he is not yet in the White House. However, I do intend to speak with President Biden soon and raise this issue. Because he is the current President and a lot depends on his position.”
Newsweek spoke to Jamie Shea, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges at NATO about possible NATO plans to circumvent Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine.
Regarding NATO possibly coming up with a plan independent of the US, he said, “I don’t think NATO will try to act counter to the United States or the Trump administration, it obviously would do no good for Trump’s attitude towards the Europeans or NATO in general. So, I think NATO would avoid that and would want to work as harmoniously as possible with Trump and whatever plan he comes up with.”
“Secondly, NATO is not the sort of organization that, as I mentioned, handles political negotiations. Look at the Cold War, that was done by the two plus four talks on German unification, nuclear arms control was between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty was done by an organization called OSCE, Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe. NATO, of course, has an interest in all of this.”
Shea compared the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine with the U.S.’s involvement in negotiating the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty with the Soviet Union during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. He noted that NATO “set up a special consultative group where the people involved in the negotiations, the Americans, would come to NATO and inform the allies of what was going on, so that the allies were not left in the dark, and all of those allies, by being consulted, were given an opportunity to give their views.”
In terms of Merz’s proposed creation of a contact group for Ukraine, he said, “Well, it’s clear that the bigger European allies, France, Germany, Poland, would want to be very closely associated and show that Europe has a seat at the table as well. That could work because these contact groups have existed in the past. For example, they handled the Dayton peace agreement with Bosnia in 95, essentially negotiated by the Americans, but the contact group was present in Dayton, Ohio, at the table, but feeding back into NATO as well. There are precedents for these kind of contact groups that have been used in the past between the United States and the big European powers, but of course, when it comes to Ukraine, all allies have been giving assistance, Denmark, Norway, everybody’s been helping out, everybody has an interest in the outcome. So, I think the question would be the articulation between the United States, a smaller group, and a larger group.”
He added, “I think for NATO and Ukraine, it’s not just about Ukraine. We don’t want to come out of this with Russia still being in a confrontational posture with nuclear weapons in Belarus and Russian conventional weapons pointing at NATO or Russian tanks on the border with Finland.” Shea said that NATO will likely want to become more involved with reinforcing restraints on Russian military forces and resurrecting arms control agreements like the INF treaty to “ensure that we have a permanent peace coming out of this with a real de-escalation with Russia.”
He said, “I think NATO’s equities will be, first of all, the short-term peace in Ukraine and how do we implement that, but more broadly, how do we springboard from that to this sort of broader talk on the future European security arms, actually, with Russia, to try to sort of de-escalate as much as possible.”
