Dear chairs of the Boston Global Forum, Nguyễn Anh Tuấn, dear fellow councils general and distinguished member of the audience, as the french consul general in Boston, let me express my deep appreciation for the initiative taken by the Boston Global Forum and the Dukakis Institute for leadership and innovation to focus on the dreadful war in Ukraine and award president Zelensky, an inspiring leader for Europe and the world, its leadership prize for peace and security. As you mentioned, professor [Zaneta] Ozolina, France is now holding the chair of the EU council and as such can speak for the EU and condemn the military invasion launched by Russia on Ukraine in the strongest possible terms. This invasion constitutes a brutal violation of international law, and we demand that Russia immediately cease its military operation, and that a total unconditional ceasefire is established. As it was said earlier, this is an unprecedented situation. It’s a turning point in the history of Europe and our countries. It will have profound lasting consequences for the geopolitics of our continent and beyond, and we will respond. This crisis seriously calls into question the international order. Ukraine brave resistance has inspired us all, and France and its partners are not at war with Russia, but we support free and sovereign Ukraine to respond and create the conditions so that Russia realizes the inanity of its war and negotiate.
This crisis has seen the EU emerge as a major foreign policy actor, both in terms of sanctions financial support and defense capabilities. The European union has never responded to a crisis with such strength and agility. Within 48 hours, the 27 EU member states adopted an extensive package of sanctions against Russia, a systemic actor and permanent member of the UN Security Council. Since then, we have constantly increased these sanctions with major decisions taken by all EU member states on SWIFT, North Stream 2, and against Vladimir Putin himself. Our sanctions are currently targeting 70 percent of Russia’s banking system including the Russian central bank with a ban on transaction involving the management of its reserves and assets with regards to defense. For the first time the 27 member states financed a European legal defensive weapons budget, worth a total of 1.5 billion euros for Ukraine. Sweden has called into question its principle of neutrality. Germany has increased its defense budget, and Denmark is preparing a referendum on this issue. The strategic compass has been approved, and following the Versailles summit on 10th and 11th March, the commission is expected to propose significant reinvestment in defense industries. And with a view to European energy independence, the european union is also committed to provide support to the Ukrainian government for its immediate needs. And once the Russian onslaught has seized for the reconstruction of a democratic Ukraine, the EU has now set up an international fund to help finance the reconstruction of Ukraine, and we look forward to the May 5th donors conference to provide concrete resources.
Finally, let us think of the millions of Ukrainian families impacted by Russia’s war. As of March 22nd, 10 million Ukrainians have had to leave their homes. 3.4 million are already in the European union. Under the French presidency of the EU, we have jointly decided to activate the temporary protection directive for the first time in our history. It will allow all Ukrainians and Ukrainian residents who are fleeing their country to be welcomed on the territories of the 27 member states, and to benefit from immediate protection, which can now be renewed to last up to three years. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope I have demonstrated to you how committed the EU is in this crisis. We will be on Ukraine’s side, and we support president Zelensky’s ambitious vision for Ukraine, modern, prosperous, forward-looking, and part of our European family. Thank you very much.
Good morning, and I will be brief. Okay, straight to the point, and allow me to start with the obvious. These are difficult times, very difficult times, and they are very dangerous times. This is not the first time that a major power has invaded a neighbor that is smaller and weaker, as we are reminded by a statement made by the head of the WHO, but it is the first time, and this adds to the complexity of the current situation, that the world’s second largest nuclear power invades the world’s third nuclear power. So far we have seen, or we have heard of, we have assumed that the nuclear domain is in the background. It will never be touched, may that be the case. So far, the present aggression has been undertaken by traditional means, not pleasant means, but traditional ones we may see, and we may see the deployment of cyber capabilities, which are now still in the background. We may also see the deployment of cyber capabilities by Russia in other directions, directions that are intended to depress, reduce the support for Ukraine. Unfortunately, I do have to remind you that a number of states of countries have selected not to condemn Russia. Now that is a fact that has to be taken into account as we proceed, and that does not help. So what must be done, what are some essentials have already been mentioned, and I will just highlight a couple of them. They are all in one of your written papers, that have been circulated. And as a previous speaker noted, we have a short run, and we have a longer run. We can envisage what is needed in the short run, and there is very little disagreement among analysts, and there will probably be little disagreement among ourselves here as to what is needed to support Ukraine in the very very short run, meaning today, tomorrow, as needed. We know that humanitarian assistance is essential. In fact we keep repeating that, but we also know that regretfully the delivery accelerated, the delivery of advanced weapons, is also essential. We know that the current sanctions on the Russian system, Russian leadership, etc. must be continued. And we also know that there are movements for trying to organize a high level conference to bring the parties together.
To articulate conditions for maintaining the security and integrity of Ukraine, some of these issues will come back again today. There cannot be much disagreement, and other than what is required is certainly much a longer list than what I’ve just mentioned. Let me turn to the longer term, which is highly complex and may carry its own dynamics.
We would like to make sure that the message has becomes clear that compromising with excessive behaviors on dictators or authoritarian regimes creates backlashes and will not be tolerated. We have previously talked about the formation of an analogous type of program for the reconstruction of Ukraine, analogous to the martial plan that’s already has been mentioned, and we also know that for the long run we have to revisit what we consider our ethics, and our humanitarian perspectives, and the legal foundations for the robustness of the international system. And in that context, allow me to draw your attention or to publicize the book that the group has put together on remaking the world. It tries to be both ethical and pragmatic, and may have good ideas. Now I will conclude with some questions or issues for us all to think about, and that is we are in a transition. We are unfortunately in a transition, and we don’t see clearly what the past might be. We have a bifurcated world, which makes a cold war look really very pleasant in comparison with what we have now. There is some talk about encouraging the formation of mechanisms for a more robust alliance to support an easy transition, but as far as I can tell, so far they’re really just concepts and words. But what is very important is the evidence we have that Sweden and Finland may actually make an effort to apply for membership in NATO. Now in the broader context, this is quite an extraordinary set of moves, for it to happen. In the narrower context, short run, it signals how critical the present situation is, and how ways of dealing with the unpleasantness that we had in the past. At least these two countries recognize fully that they cannot walk the line in the middle, that they may have to take some kind of a position.
And to conclude, let me just say or ask you to think about what this might mean at the global level in the context of the fact that some countries, i don’t really know what their number is, or I don’t want to know what the number is, have not condemned the Russian move. So with this, I thank you for your attention.
Thank you, thank you very much. I’m really honored and privileged to be with you, and of course I want to thank to Michael Dukakis and Boston Global Forum for remaining such impressive group of people there in your premises in Boston. And of course us who are able to be with you, not share the floor but share the screen at least, along with such a very important topic of course, it’s my very honor and privilege also to its entire time to speak after my multiple president, president Danilo Turk, who is my president very many times, usually before as a president of Club de Madrid, and now as the Co-Chair and president of the international center, which now I again very easily call my dear friend as my president Vaira. Of course after her speech about Ukraine especially about having in mind and her experience, her knowledge, her wisdom, and her passion about people who are going through such a terrible terrible terrible challenges like Ukraine people do, because as she mentioned obviously a very tough experience in her lifetime as refugees, running away from a similar type of evil that is chasing Ukrainian people today. Of course at the same time I have also actually shared with you a few of my personal experiences with a recent one and not so recently recent one is as a member of the NGIC team that and the leadership of Moldova we put together in the last month. First we want to visit refugees. Refugee acceptance in Moldova, in Romania, and in Poland, and that experience is in order to take some kind of let’s say make anything which is possible to somehow you know to help the people who just not so long time ago had normal lives that suddenly just fell apart. I was in, as i said in Moldova, at least in one few refugee center, and just to give you the feeling of it, Moldova is one of the smallest countries in Europe, but countries show that they’re a small nation but with enormously great heart. People have enormously great heart especially having in mind that they may be the next Ukraine. Moldova may be the next victim of Putin. Putin army but people over there trying to do their best in order to accept uh accept refugees from Ukraine. When you take a look, just from the perspective of Moldova, [which] is the country that today in schools one out of seven children in schools are refugees coming from Ukraine. Poland is a country that is accepting the biggest number of refugees and helping enormously, and this is something which, when I was there, I was seeing the same very same pictures go through in front of my eyes. That I saw 30 years ago, when i was Deputy Prime Minister and first independent republican Bosnian to governor government of the independence, where we were attacked by Regional Putin of that time, […]. The same type of mindset, the very same scenario, everything is déja vu. Everything that we are seeing today in Ukraine, from military perspective, propaganda perspective, brutality, the myths, the grandeurs as Vaira likes to say, I mean about great Russia or great Serbia 30 years ago. We saw all those things. And I remember 30 years ago it was first time when I met refugees just 30, 40 kilometers from my home city. There were people that looked exactly the same and they went exactly to the same things that people are going right now in Ukraine. Those are the people that just some months ago, or maybe not years but months ago, they had normal life. They were planning to have their summer vacation sometimes with graphic cards or some place in Spain, or you know just having normal life. Suddenly their lives were simply destroyed.
What I’m trying to say is that what was happening to us 30 years ago, it’s happening in Ukraine right now. And this has to be very clear signal to all of us that 20 or 30 years ago, it was in Bosnia or in Croatia or some place in western Baltimore. Today it is in Ukraine. Tomorrow it can be any place in Europe. I don’t want to go outside of Europe. I’ll just stay to Europe, so these are the things: if we do not confront them together, with force, with wisdom, with solidarity, then it can happen to any one of us. Next point is something which I want to share with you, is I think it is very important today. We are talking about rebuilding Ukraine, but first we have to talk and focus on defending Ukraine, defending Ukraine and helping people who are defending themselves, because today over in Ukraine they’re defending Ukraine, but they are not [just] defending Ukraine; they’re defending all of us; they’re defending Europe; they’re defending western Balkan, because after Ukraine, Georgia. After Georgia, maybe western Balkan, Baltic countries, Poland of course, Moldova, Bulgaria, who knows who can be the next. So it is very important that we do everything that’s in our power to show that we are standing up for Ukraine, that Ukraine has to be defended, and they will be rebuilt. And what is important to understand, that I think is very important: it is of crucial importance that we start showing today, that we are thinking together how we can rebuild Ukraine, rebuild Ukraine in economic sense, in the sense of not only economy, but the life way of Ukraine, which is educational facilities, healthcare facilities, cultural facilities, everything that actually is giving the substance to the life that will be happening. Of course connectivity as I said is one of the things that may help today, which was not available, because when my country was on the process of reconstruction 25 years ago. That connectivity, with that context, I think is most important in reconstruction, when it comes to technology, when it comes to information, when it comes to education, special education. That is part of our overall activities, about the social contract for the age of partitioning facial intelligence. We have to see how we can tackle and penetrate through these different layers of reconstruction of the country.
And the last point, it looks to me that I have mentioned very precisely, this troika: Peter the Great, Tataria the Great, and of course Putin. [They all try to be the first person to make a great Russia…] but Putin needs to be rebuilding, so to say, make Russia great again. And who knows, it feels like a joke, but frankly speaking, it’s not a joke [inaudible…]. In order to recreate a Great Serbia, Putin exterminated everyone who does not fit in great Serbia. Everyone who is not Serb and everyone who does not support Great Serbia is someone that has to be exterminated. But it’s kind of, you know, it was kind of strange to us, but you know last Communist leader is filling the myths of the past and trying to make a great nationalistic state, which basically speaking looks like kind of contradiction between […] strategy and nationalistic nations [inaudible…]
mindset that wants to use everything that is possible in order to put the people under its own mind: Great Serbia, Great Communist Country, Great Russia, great whatever, great. But the point is that our Putin is the fourth one. It’s kind of paradoxical that Stalin was not Russian. Katarina the Great, she was also not Russian. of course Peter the great was Russian. And listen, it looks like Putin would be the, let’s say he would make an even fight between Russians and non-Russians, are trying to make Great Russia. So this brings me back to my original point. Everything is understanding because we understand everything, and what we have to do is we have to show that we are together, and the world understands, everywhere in the world, that today fight for defending and rebuilding Ukraine is not quite the fight to defend only Ukraine, but this is the fight to defend the free world, world of moral [inaudible]. Today that we will do everything in our power to help Ukraine, help Ukraine to be, I won’t say great, just be normal, just be normal part of the free world.
So thank you thank you for the privilege to be with you today, and I really do hope that we will show that it is possible to stand after Ukrainian people, and to show to Putin that definitely sooner or later, his effort will come to nothing.
I’ll be very short here. I’m struck with the fact that in 1991 Estonia left the Soviet Union, and one of the things it did first is, it renovated its governance and its internal systems and deployed the first general blockchain system in the world because they were concerned about security. They needed a system that was distributed so the expected cyber-attack wouldn’t wipe them out. And I believe they’re the only country in the world that actually had a full-on national cyber-attack and survived it because of this infrastructure that they built. Now this is long before bitcoin and NFTs and all that sort of craziness. What they discovered is that the citizens loved this because it was greater transparency; you could see what was happening to your payments, what the government was doing, and it was enormously important in promoting the growth of the economy. McKinsey estimates that it’s somewhere perhaps around eight percent per year in adding to the rate of growth. And since then, other people have taken a page from that book. China for instance has put hundreds of millions of dollars into building their system which-I have seen over the past five years-has been deployed. Almost 200 million people use it today, and it’s being deployed because it makes for a better more secure trade. So, there’s a trillion dollars of investment moving into these things which are popularly called web 3.0 platforms, but really what they are is a new way of handling data and interacting with the government. Not to be outdone, Singapore along with JP Morgan has invested something north of 100 million dollars in developing their program for their trade investments, drove about a half a trillion dollars in the Indo-Pacific. We at MIT are helping countries like Switzerland build their own and Australia build their own, not out of any sense of goodness but because this allows them to be more secure in this age of attack and to be more transparent and more efficient. And recently we put together an alliance with the World Bank who is committed to bringing these sorts of advantages to mid-income and poor countries around the world which will result in much greater stability for many things including better tax, better commerce. EY is one of our core partners in this, and I think we are to make Estonia the poster child of doing this to make their internal systems hardened for the inevitable cyber-attacks and other things that are going to happen and also to promote their recovery of trade.
And that brings me to the final thing I want to mention which is the most important thing that has been destroyed in Ukraine are not the buildings. It’s the fact that the people are now dispersed. You have a refugee crisis where all the education, the social ties, all of the infrastructure, human infrastructure, are now scattered throughout that area of Europe, and you can use some of the same things to have them stay in touch with each other to rebuild their lives to make better decisions. And we have done initial examples of this for instance in Turkey with the Syrian refugees, in Colombia with the Venezuelan refugees. And I think it behooves us to do this sort of effort even better for the Ukrainian refugees, so that they can stay in touch with each other, so that they can know what is happening to them on the ground where they are, so that they can rebuild their lives, and hopefully also so that they can go back and rebuild Ukraine. So I’d love to talk to you about how we can go about doing this. So we and my team; we’re here where we wanted to be able to actually put things on the ground. So thank you.
Good morning, everyone. I would like to start with a huge thank you to the Boston Global Forum for putting on this conference together. I would like to start with the fact that the horrors of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine mark a turning point in German foreign policy. This turning point, or Zeitenwende, as chancellor Olaf Scholz called it, is truly a sea change a sea change in foreign policy, a sea change in security and defense policy, and a sea change in energy and energy policy in Germany. For the first time, the German government is supplying weapons to a warring party, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a plan to spend more than one billion euro to modernize our military force.
The approval is brought not only in the German parliament but also in the German population. The German government has announced on Tuesday that it will always also deliver tanks to the Ukraine. Kiev is only two hours away from berlin by plane the war crimes committed by the Nazi regime against the people of Eastern Europe are part of our collective memory. Those historical memories and seeing that an outside aggressor is bringing death and suffering to the people of Ukraine once again are the reason why Germany fundamentally changed its course of its foreign policy. The German people are doing everything they can to support refugees from Ukraine. So far more than 330,000 refugees have arrived, and the German people are welcoming with open arms.
Putin’s war of aggression also marked the end of an illusion for Germany. The assumption that we can achieve change within Russia and its government through diplomatic engagement and trade has failed. In January 2022, Germany took over the presidency of the G7. We understand that G7 is a group of democracies based on common values and global responsibility. During its one year of G7 presidency, Germany aims to tackle global challenges in a multilateral way together with our partners. We are working towards a global energy transition, a strong post-COVID economy recovery, and the prevention of the next pandemic. The war in Ukraine has dramatically shifted the attention of the G7 in the light of Russia’s unjustifiable unprovoked and illegal aggression against an independent and sovereign Ukraine. Our main objective has become to strengthen and the coordinated action of G7 along with our allies and partners in the world. The G7 nations are bringing together their collective economic weight in order to end the war in Ukraine as quickly as possible. As a result the G7 in coordination with the EU has implemented and is implementing unprecedented sanctions against Russia and Belarus. My colleague, the consul general of France Arnaud Mentré already spoke about this. And of course at the G7 level we also coordinate arms deliveries to Ukraine.
Let me end by saying it has been two months since Russia launched its unprovoked attack against its people and its peaceful neighbor. Faced by the horrifying war crimes committed by Russian troops, the people of Ukraine are fighting back heroically. This war affects the world, the whole world, whether you go along with the sanctions or not, whether you believe in international rule-based order or not.
As one of the largest industrial countries in the world, Germany has a responsibility to Ukraine. Two months after the start of the war, the crimes committed by Russia continue to dominate every headline in Germany. The German people are watching, and we are horrified by the suffering inflicted on the Ukrainian people. We are determined to work with our partners and allies to end this war as quickly as possible by imposing the heaviest possible sanctions on Russia and sending civilian and military aid to Ukraine. At the same time, Germany is addressing the humanitarian crisis by welcoming Ukrainians that needed to flee their own country. We will remain in solidarity with the Ukrainian people, and we are taking a long-term perspective on assisting Ukraine with military defense. I can also assure you that Germany will take a leading role in rebuilding Ukraine. Thank you.
