On February 24, the Russia-Ukraine conflict celebrated its second anniversary.
To show their firm support for Ukraine, Italian Prime Minister Meloni, Belgian Prime Minister De Croo, European Commission President von der Leyen and Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau went to Kyiv to show solidarity.
The leaders of the Group of Seven also held a video conference with Ukrainian President Zelensky that day in order to send the message to the Ukrainian people that "they are not alone."
However, the European public seems to want to send a completely different message.
Recently, farmers' protests and demonstrations have broken out in many European countries. Boycotting the dumping of Ukrainian agricultural products is one of the main demands of the protesters.
It can be said that the European people and the EU are at odds with each other in their attitudes toward Ukraine.
Politics is getting tougher and tougher
Currently, Italy holds the rotating presidency of the G7 and Belgium holds the rotating presidency of the European Union.
Three heavyweight European politicians visited Ukraine at the same time on the second anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The political significance and importance of this are self-evident.
During this visit, the EU and Ukraine reached important consensus on Ukraine's accession to the EU.
After holding three-way talks with von der Leyen and De Croo that day, Zelensky said that a political decision had been reached on launching Ukraine's EU membership negotiations, and that Ukraine could do this during Belgium's rotating EU presidency.
Von der Leyen also said that day that the European Commission is expected to provide an overall negotiation framework for Ukraine's "EU accession" in mid-March.
Recently, Europe has moved ahead of the United States in terms of financial assistance to Ukraine.
At the special EU summit held on February 1, an agreement was reached on providing an additional 50 billion euros in financial assistance to Ukraine.
U.S. President Biden previously promised to provide $60 billion in aid to Ukraine, but was blocked by Republicans in Congress.
According to Russian media reports, von der Leyen said during a visit to Kyiv on the 24th that the EU plans to provide Ukraine with the first batch of 50 billion euros in aid in March, amounting to 4.5 billion euros.
However, Europe's vision of taking the first step in funding aid to Ukraine "will encourage the United States to do its best (to assist Ukraine)" has not yet seen hope.
Militarily, the EU also plans to achieve closer cooperation with Ukraine.
On February 24, Von der Leyen said at a press conference that in three weeks the European Commission will propose a new defense industry strategy to provide support for Ukraine and plans to set up a defense office in Kyiv to strengthen cooperation. "This is A first step towards integrating Ukraine into the EU defense industry programme”.
In recent months, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Denmark and other countries have signed security agreements with Ukraine to demonstrate their all-round support for Ukraine and at the same time send a further signal to the United States.
On the 24th, Canada and Italy also signed a security agreement with Ukraine, following the example of France and Germany.
"The message I want to convey to all Ukrainian people today is that they are not fighting alone." Meloni said when signing a 10-year bilateral security agreement with Zelensky.
Western media have doubts about whether the security guarantee provided by the EU is effective.
It is obvious that there is a mismatch between ability and willingness in strengthening military assistance to Ukraine.
The New York Times reported that the United States is now capable of providing weapons, technology and intelligence to Kiev to help it resist attacks, but many European countries believe that the United States has lost its willingness to aid Ukraine.
In contrast, Europe is willing to assist Ukraine, but it appears to be unable to repel Russia's renewed offensive against Ukraine.
Farmers' protests escalate again
If we only look at the official statements from high-level officials, it seems that the EU member states have unified their thinking. Even when Europe's own economy is in deep trouble and social problems arise one after another, they must "support" Ukraine without reservation.
But the European people seem to be unable to keep up with the EU's support for Ukraine.
In May 2022, the EU set up a so-called "Solidarity Channel" to solve the problem of Ukrainian grain exports. However, this channel gradually evolved into a channel for Ukraine to dump agricultural products from neighboring countries, causing damage to the interests of farmers in relevant EU countries.
Nearly two years later, the issue of grain dumping from Ukraine to Europe has still not been effectively resolved.
Coupled with the "European Green Deal" and the increase in agricultural costs caused by rising inflation, European farmers' protests have erupted in recent days.
February 24th is not only the second anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but also the opening day of the 2024 French International Agricultural Expo (Agricultural Expo).
On the same day, a large number of farmers forced their way into the Agricultural Expo before President Macron arrived to protest against the EU's environmental policies and unfair competition brought about by cheap imported agricultural products.
At the same time, some people accused the French government of spending heavily on aid to Ukraine and being extremely stingy when providing subsidies to farmers. "It has spent a huge amount of money on the Ukraine issue, but we can only get some leftovers."
According to French media reports, France will provide Ukraine with additional military assistance worth 3 billion euros this year alone.
Objectively speaking, compared with the Central and Eastern European and Baltic countries adjacent to Ukraine, the damage suffered by French farmers due to aid to Ukraine is relatively limited. Therefore, farmers' protests and demonstrations in Poland and other countries have been more intense.
On February 22, Polish farmers united with farmers from many Central and Eastern European countries and the Baltic countries to hold protests and demonstrations to resolutely resist the European Green Deal and the dumping of Ukrainian agricultural products.
The European Green Deal requires that the use of chemical pesticides and antibacterial agents be reduced by half and the use of chemical fertilizers by one-fifth by 2030. This will undoubtedly greatly increase the production costs of European farmers and weaken the market competition of agricultural products in European countries. force.
A Polish farmer said in an interview with the media, "I am worried that the expenditure will be higher than the income and the grain will not be sold at all, because the grain market has been completely occupied by Ukrainian agricultural products."
On the day that a delegation of European leaders visited Ukraine, agricultural conflicts between Poland and Ukraine further escalated.
On the 24th, Ukrainian soybeans on a freight train were dumped and discarded at the Dorohusk border checkpoint in Poland.
According to reports, the incident caused the loss of about 5 tons of soybeans.
Although Polish President Duda recently posted on social media that "Poland has, is and will continue to support Ukraine's fight for freedom in the past, present and future," Polish farmers do not seem to think so. In the past few weeks, Polish farmers have tried to blockade The two countries have protested at the border against the influx of duty-free agricultural products from Ukraine, saying it undermines local agricultural production.
People widely call for peace
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has entered its third year. In the process of aiding Ukraine, Europe's economic growth has been under more pressure, social conflicts are more likely to break out, and the geosecurity situation has worsened.
On this road with no end in sight, it is not easy to "save oneself", let alone "save others" with real money.
The harm caused by the war to Europe has long been reflected in various economic data and in all aspects of the daily lives of European people.
On February 15, the European Commission released its economic forecast, lowering the EU's 2024 growth forecast from 1.3% to 0.9%. The economic growth momentum is far lower than expected.
Are there any eggs under the overturned nest?
Even Germany, one of the economic leaders in Europe, is not immune. As the conflict between Russia and Ukraine prolongs, domestic energy prices in Germany have skyrocketed. The daily expenses of the general public have also increased significantly, and their purchasing power has shrunk significantly.
The person in charge of a German hotel said in an interview with the media: "Electricity is more expensive, water is more expensive, food is more expensive, everything is more expensive."
On the other hand, although Western leaders are still promising Ukraine that they will continue to impose sanctions on Russia and attack its sources of income, many Europeans have discovered that the sanctions originally intended to paralyze the Russian economy have lost their effect.
The International Monetary Fund's prediction that "Russia's economy will shrink significantly" has obviously not become a reality.
Stimulated by huge military spending, Russia's economic growth has exceeded that of Germany, and its oil export revenue is higher than before the conflict.
It is against this background that more and more Europeans are beginning to think about whether aiding Ukraine in this way is really the right choice?
Especially after seeing that it is difficult to achieve European security by fighting violence with violence, people are looking forward to resolving disputes through peaceful means.
A poll released by the European Council on Foreign Relations on February 21 showed that only 10% of Europeans believed that Ukraine could defeat Russia on the battlefield.
At the same time, 41% of people believe that peace negotiations should be promoted.
In fact, there are endless voices from European people looking forward to peace.
During the 60th Munich Security Conference, thousands of German people held anti-war demonstrations in Munich, calling on the United States and Western countries to stop providing military assistance to Ukraine and strive for an early ceasefire and an end to the war.
Demonstrators said that some Western countries are determined to deliver weapons to Ukraine with the purpose of profiting from war.
"We hope to call on the participants of the Munich Security Council (Western countries) to get rid of military thinking and methods through the protest, and use peaceful thinking to resolve conflicts." A demonstrator expressed the voice of the anti-war people.
(Our reporter Sun Tieniu)