Europe must take responsibility for its own security as decisively as possible, as the American presence on the continent is not set to increase. This was stated by Gaël Veyssière, the French Ambassador to Ukraine, during a discussion at the Kyiv Security Forum’s new format event, ‘Kyiv Security Forum: Deep Strike’.

“The current trend is that the American presence in Europe – to put it diplomatically – will not increase, and that we must take the situation into our own hands as decisively as possible, both at national level and within the EU and NATO. Our American friends are telling us that we must do more, and, to be frank, they are right,” he noted.

Veyssière emphasised that defence has become one of the EU’s key priorities. “I remember how, ten years ago, the issue of defence was not discussed at all, whereas now it is one of the EU’s key areas of activity. We have managed to set up excellent programmes – EDIP, SAFE – with substantial financial resources, aimed both at enabling EU Member States to increase their military and defence capabilities and at bringing direct benefits to Ukraine. And I believe we should continue to move in this direction,” the ambassador emphasised.

The diplomat also spoke highly of the outcomes of the G7 summit. “The crisis in the Middle East has now been resolved. It is now time to refocus our attention on another extremely important matter – Ukraine. This summit took place at just the right moment and has indeed yielded tangible results,” Veyssière noted.

The discussion took place in a new format of the Kyiv Security Forum, ‘Kyiv Security Forum: Deep Strike’, with the participation of the Kyiv Security Forum’s Chair, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who served as Prime Minister of Ukraine from 2014 to 2016; Kyiv Security Forum Security Council member Danylo Lubkivsky, who served as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine in 2014; the German Ambassador to Ukraine, Heiko Thoms; and the French Ambassador to Ukraine, Gaël Veyssière.