A long-term re-armament of Europe is needed to counter Russian ambitions, Poland’s foreign minister said.
In an interview with the Guardian published on Saturday, Radosław Sikorski also said that Poland supports allowing Ukraine to use Western weapons for attacks on Russian soil.
Sikorski said Poland was “rediscovering” the need for re-armament with large volumes of low-tech equipment, such as shells.
“We have allowed all those production facilities to be closed down after the end of the Cold War," Sikorski said. "It costs money to persuade companies to keep production lines in reserve. We just didn’t pay the money. That was part of the peace dividend. And with hindsight it looks like a mistake,” he said.
“It is obvious that Europe is lagging behind, and the EU’s defense and technological and industrial base suffers from years of underinvestment,” the minister added.
Poland spends almost 4 percent of its annual GDP on defense, making it one of the biggest military spenders in Europe.
Sikorski also told the Guardian the West should stop limiting itself in its support of Ukraine. He said Poland would back an EU-wide scheme to encourage Ukrainians to return home to fight.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Friday his country was looking to redefine its membership in NATO to ensure the country cannot be involved in operations outside of the military alliance's territory.
"Now a new term has been invented to describe the Hungarian position in NATO, it is called non-participation. We are not a participant now," Orbán said in an interview with Kossuth Radio, according to a report by Hungarian news portal Telex.
"There is the term opt-out ... If we were opt-outs, our participation in NATO's military structure, our position, would change,” Orbán was quoted as saying.
The Hungarian leader said lawyers are working on how Hungary can exist as a member of NATO and not participate in the alliance’s action outside NATO territory, according to the report.
"There's no question of NATO getting involved in wars outside its territory, with non-NATO countries," Orbán was quoted as saying.
Orbán — who has maintained close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin even after Moscow ordered an all-out invasion of Ukraine — has also said Russia cannot win the war against Ukraine. "If the Russians were strong enough to defeat the Ukrainians in one go, they would have been defeated; but that's not what we are seeing," he said.
The Hungarian prime minister added that Russia won’t attack the West. "NATO's strength is not comparable to Ukraine's. It's a hundred times, maybe a thousand times, so I don't think it's logical to assume that Russia, which can't even deal with Ukraine, would suddenly come in and take on the whole Western world," Orbán was quoted as saying.
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Hungary’s persistent reluctance to support Ukraine has slowed down several EU decisions on supporting Kyiv, as they often require the consensus of the bloc’s 27 countries.
"How many more weapons will we send? How much more money will we send?" Orbán asked in the interview. "This gives rise to the darkest visions,” he said.
"What is happening today in Brussels and Washington — perhaps more in Brussels than in Washington — is a kind of mood of preparation for a possible direct military conflict; we can safely call it: preparation for Europe to go to war," Orbán warned in the interview.
Hungary’s leader has also cheered former U.S. President Donald Trump’s bid for reelection. Some other EU capitals fear that if Trump wins a second term, Orbán could welcome a potential Trump initiative to bring the Ukraine conflict to an end by striking a peace deal with Moscow and ceding territory that the Kremlin has claimed.
A senior official of a NATO country, granted anonymity to speak freely, said: “It’s not a surprise given his close ties with Trump and Putin. Let’s wait and see what Szijjártó tells us in Prague next week,” referring to Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó.
In July, Hungary takes over the presidency of the Council of the EU, which gives Budapest an influence on the agenda-setting.
Barbara Moens and Stuart Lau contributed reporting.
On the eve of next week’s EU election, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is inviting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to team up and form a right-wing super-grouping that would be the second-biggest party bloc in the European Parliament.
The far right is projected to perform well in the June 6-9 election but there are still intense doubts about which parties would be able to work together as cross-border political groups because many of the national parties are sharply divided, especially over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Le Pen’s pitch to Meloni is simple, and could well prove significant. Speaking to Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper on Sunday, she said: “This is the moment to unite, it would be truly useful. If we manage, we will become the second group of the European Parliament. I think that we should not let an opportunity like this pass us by.”
Le Pen’s National Rally party currently sits with Identity and Democracy (ID) group, while Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party sits with the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR).
Le Pen’s appeal comes just days after the ID group expelled the extreme-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) following a series of scandals that made the party a pariah. The group also includes the anti-immigrant League, a party which is in coalition with Meloni in the Italian government.
The far-right parties are currently divided into four rough groupings and one of the biggest questions surrounding the election is how they might configure in the aftermath. If they all worked together — which still seems unlikely — they could be the No. 2 force in Parliament.
The latest projections suggest 68 seats for ID and 71 for ECR, making 139 lawmakers in the 720-seat chamber. AfD is on course for 17 seats and the unaffiliated Hungarian Fidesz party currently has 12 MEPs. All together, something over 165 seats would seem to be in play for the (currently disunited) far right.
POLITICO’s Poll of Polls puts the EPP group on track to win 174 seats with the Socialists and Democrats heading toward 144 seats.
Poland’s former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki from the conservative PiS party in the ECR has also left the door open to a big tie-up on the right, and there is wide speculation that Hungary’s Viktor Orbán will affiliate his Fidesz party there after the election.
All of these mergers and reconfigurations are complex and vulnerable to post-election deals and disagreements. The Czechs and Romanians in the ECR don’t want to team up with nationalist Hungarians sympathetic to the Kremlin, for example. Major political gymnastics and resets would be required to get the AfD back in the tent.
While losing the AfD has dented ID’s numbers, it has opened doors for Le Pen. The AfD and Le Pen’s National Rally party have long been considered as too extreme for cooperation — outside a so-called cordon sanitaire created by the pro-Europe mainstream.
Cooperation with Meloni could, therefore, be a double win for Le Pen. They could build a hefty voting bloc from which to influence Europe’s agenda and bring National Rally more into the mainstream right in the eyes of the public, something Le Pen craves before France’s 2027 election.
In the interview, Le Pen denied severing ties with the AfD was a cynical move intended to facilitate new alliances in Europe.
On Meloni, she said: “I believe that she and I are in agreement on the essential issues, including taking back control of our countries.”
Later on Sunday, Meloni did not rule out accepting Le Pen’s offer.
In an interview on Rai TV Meloni said that she did not have any red lines when it came to potential alliances other political forces in the new European assembly, having been categorized as “unpresentable” herself, “for a lifetime”.
She said: “My main objective is to build an alternative majority to the one that has governed in recent years. A centre-right majority — in other words — which will send the left into opposition in Europe.”
Meloni said she was not willing to be part of a majority with the left.
LONDON — Deep disagreements in the U.K. Conservative Party over Brexit? Surely not!
Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch continued the Conservatives’ EU forever war Thursday night as she accused David Cameron of failing to prepare sufficiently for Brexit as prime minister.
“One of the most disappointing things was becoming an MP a year later and finding out there had been no plans made about how this was going to happen,” Badenoch told business lobby group the Confederation of British Industry Thursday. “I think that was the real dereliction of duty.”
“If you’re offering people Leave vs. Remain you need to do your work, not just do the work for the option you want to win,” she added, in comments that could make for some awkward chat around the Cabinet table, where Cameron now sits as foreign secretary.
Cameron, who pushed for Britain to stay in the bloc, resigned as PM in 2016 following the country’s Brexit vote.
Civil servants were forbidden from preparing for a Brexit vote during the campaign, a decision parliament’s foreign affairs committee later described as an act of “gross negligence.”
Badenoch, a rising star tipped as a future Tory leader, voted for Brexit, and has revealed that the referendum split her family.
The business and trade secretary reportedly criticized Leveling-Up Secretary Michael Gove, a former ally, over his stance on government plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Stefan Boscia and Dan Bloom contributed reporting.
Westminster says farewell to Britain’s second female premier brought down by her party’s civil war over Europe.
May herself was largely unaligned in the great schism which had riven her Conservative Party since the war and continues to divide it today | POOL photo by Andy Buchanon/Getty Images
Westminster says farewell to Britain’s second female premier, who was brought down by Conservative Party civil wars over Europe.
When she came to office in 2016, Theresa May had everything going for her: a united party, a supportive electorate, and all the experience and strength of character to make a success of her role as Britain’s second female prime minister.
Instead, as she announces her departure from the U.K. parliament after 27 years at the forthcoming general election, May will overwhelmingly be remembered for just one thing: her abject failure to get Brexit done.
This was the mission she set herself upon entering No. 10 in the wake of the 2016 vote to leave the European Union, after being elected unanimously by her party’s members of parliament. It was also perhaps the one task she was temperamentally ill equipped to deliver.
May herself was largely unaligned in the great schism which had riven her Conservative Party since the war and continues to divide it today; she voted to Remain but came out as such only at the last minute. She had felt frustration with Brussels during her six years as home secretary, but on balance felt it would be economically reckless to leave.
That meant that she lacked any ideological ballast in the Brexit wars that followed, when the U.K. parliament became a chaotic mess of tension and recrimination. Angry MPs repeatedly voted down the deals she painstakingly negotiated with EU leaders, while apparently offering no alternative path through the quagmire. She proved spectacularly unable to resolve the impasse.
It was only when May was forced to stand aside for Boris Johnson that Brexit was indeed done.
A thorn in her successors’ sides
Unusually for an ex-prime minister, May stuck around the House of Commons for seven years after her tearful departure from No. 10, where she focused on pet projects including tackling modern slavery and, having developed type one diabetes in her 50s, care for the disease. She was also something of a thorn in the side of her successors, last year criticizing Rishi Sunak over his climate policies.
May received plaudits for the typically traditional and upstanding way she announced her plan to depart at the general election, which will take place this year — in the pages of her local newspaper in her constituency of Maidenhead.
Sunak was among those who paid tribute, saying that May “defines what it means to be a public servant.” Her predecessor David Cameron, who now serves as foreign secretary, added: “She has been the most dedicated of public servants. The House of Commons will miss her.”
Andrew Gimson, author of “Gimson’s Prime Ministers,” says of May: “At heart she was a very decent person who always did her best. Unfortunately, her best was not enough.”
At the outset of her premiership, May’s vista appeared promising. As she stood on the steps of Downing Street she promised to end the “burning injustices” she felt bedeviled Britain at the start of the new century. She portrayed herself as a smart, meritocratic grammar school girl, in contrast to the empty charm of her Eton-educated predecessor David Cameron.
Unusually for an ex-prime minister, May stuck around the House of Commons for seven years after her tearful departure from No. 10 | Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images
She had chafed against Cameron during her six years serving him as home secretary, an unprecedented tenure in a role which, before and since, has been seen as a poisoned chalice.
At the Home Office, she was criticized for introducing a “hostile environment” for immigrants, a phrase she later said she regretted, but was admired for her staunch outlook in the face of several terrorist attacks.
While fellow MPs admired her strength, others found her rigid — Cabinet colleague Ken Clarke was caught on a hot mic describing her as a “bloody difficult woman,” and she struggled to make allegiances, a pattern which came back to haunt her in the Brexit years.
Gimson says: “One of the consequences of having been a very independent home secretary was that she wasn’t very good at forming close political relationships, except with her closest advisers. She was always a bit of a loner.”
May’s strength departed her when she made the fatal mistake of heeding the siren call of those in her party who wanted her to call a general election less than a year into her term in office, in a bid to shore up her majority. Instead, irritated at being dragged back to the polls by internal Tory politics and spooked by an 11th hour proposal floated by May’s adviser Nick Timothy of a root and branch reform of social care, electors denied her one.
That left May wounded and vulnerable, lacking the numbers to stave off even the tiniest rebellion; indeed, she could govern the minority parliament only with the support of Northern Ireland’s hard-line Democratic Union Party, adding an additional headache in her already fraught negotiations with Brussels.
The inability to form close relationships proved a problem in May’s interactions with European leaders, too, and matters became almost farcical when it came to dealing with her American counterpart. That Donald Trump was the president she was forced to deal with during her time in No. 10 meant she was denied the cosy relationship most British leaders enjoy with U.S. presidents.
Instead, she would be photographed with a rictus grin as this most upstanding of U.K. premiers struggled to communicate with the wildest American president in history.
Excruciating
In one of the more excruciating political videos of all time, Trump held May by the hand as they walked to meet a phalanx of camera crews, to her clear mortification.
Harder to face, perhaps, was the reality that her ambition to do something with her time in office — to tackle those burning injustices — never came to fruition. The behemoth that was Brexit consumed all her hopes of achieving anything of substance.
The inability to form close relationships proved a problem in May’s interactions with European leaders | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
As one of the unluckiest prime ministers ever to hold office, she leaves the Commons knowing that her reputation as a decent person may remain intact — but her legacy will forever be tainted by the Brexit wars.
Rosa Prince is author of the book “Theresa May: The Enigmatic Prime Minister.”
