«United in defense. United in recovery. Stronger together.” The official slogan of the Conference on the reconstruction of Ukraine, hosted for the first time in an EU country, clashes significantly with the new post-election reality that has disfigured the face of Europe.
STARTING from Germany, the largest contributor to the war-financial effort for Kiev and a key country for opening the two doors of Brussels to Ukraine, as the President of the Commission Ursula von Der Leyen and the NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg insistently request. Chancellor Olaf Scholz is fresh from the bitterest electoral defeat in the history of the SPD while Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock presents herself as the leader of the Greens almost halved by the EU vote.
Nonetheless, inside the mega hall of the CityCube conference center in Berlin the imperative for the allies is optimism and full steam ahead as and more than before, at least in terms of the avalanche of weapons and money essential to keep Ukraine afloat. «There will be no Russian military victory, no peace dictated by Putin», Scholz says, opening the proceedings of the summit with two thousand guests from 60 countries.
Reconstruction? «The best is the one that never has to start. This is why we must support Kiev in air defense”, adds the SPD leader, recalling the most looming business priority of Western companies. Music, for the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky: he forgave the old frictions with Scholz and yesterday for the first time not video-connected he spoke to the deputies of the Bundestag in an extraordinary session.
It was supposed to be the celebration of reconciliation between Berlin and Kiev, the best sign of unity against Moscow; was marred by the boycott of the two real winners of the European Championships in Germany. Sahra Wagenknecht, leader of the sovereignist Alliance born from an offshoot of Linke, with 2,450,000 votes received last Sunday, dramatically abandons parliament, accusing Zelensky of wanting to widen the conflict.
«TURNING HIM with our backs we show solidarity with the Ukrainians who want a ceasefire and not end up as cannon fodder. We condemn Russia’s war but today Kiev is pushing for escalation and NATO’s entry into a war with nuclear risk.”
For opposite reasons, the AfD parliamentarians left the chamber, defined by Verdi as the “Kremlin party” but still the second political force in Germany and a hard core in the new German delegation to the European Parliament, the largest in the EU. Result: in the Bundestag there were 83 empty seats in front of Zelensky.
«I thank Germany. Ukraine is not divided by a wall. Some believed that the one in Berlin would last forever just as today they think that Putin is eternal. We will end the war but on our own terms”, Zelensky puts it straight with the tailor-made metaphor. The mountain of billions of ready-to-use euros imagined by Stoltenberg on the eve of the summit were canceled by the majority of NATO governments, but yesterday the allies opened their wallets quite wide.
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani was in Berlin for the Meloni government, ready to sign the memorandum of understanding with Kiev worth 140 million euros – of which 45 for the reconstruction of Odessa with the participation of Italian companies that the minister met on Monday in the Italian embassy – and above all about to send the Samp-T missile battery.
«A matter of weeks. I spoke with Zelensky, he thanked me for our substantial military-financial package. Positive summit for us. We have taken up the baton for the next conference on Ukrainian reconstruction which will be held in Italy in 2025.” In reality, the summit that matters will only be the Washington summit dedicated to the 75th anniversary of NATO scheduled for 9 to 11 July: formally the Berlin conference was only the “preparatory event” to prepare the common ground and give time to each to fix the awkward knots.
ABOUT, the absence at the summit dedicated to the reconstruction of the Ukrainian commissioner who was in charge of it until the day before yesterday stands out, having ended up in Zelensky’s latest purge after having denounced the spanners placed by his government. «He systematically undermined the business of my agency».
Thus Mustafà Nayyem – the man entrusted with the superintendence of civil recovery but also with control over the construction of military fortifications – resigned after having brought to light, even abroad, the very opaque system of private procurement in the shadow of the new casemates . To the “surprise and disappointment” of most Western delegates, they are keen to point out in Berlin, without accusing anyone.
