The EU must not use the risk of escalation with Putin as a pretext for easy appeasement

Europe discusses a training mission for Ukrainian soldiers - and gets lost in the subtleties. Does the EU treaty allow foreign soldiers to be trained on EU territory? Should there be an EU mission or should the EU only coordinate national missions? Should the training even take place in Ukraine?

Behind the considerations is once again the core question that has been on the minds of people in Europe since the beginning of the war: At what point do Ukraine's European allies become a war party? Only when NATO fighter jets attack in Ukraine or when a no-fly zone is set up? When the west delivers weapons? Or only when he is also training on these weapons?

In mid-March, the Bundestag's research service presented a detailed report as to when Germany would become a war party. Initially, apparently red lines are defined in it. With reference to international law, for example, it states that arms deliveries, regardless of the size, are not to be considered as entering a war. Only when training on such weapons "one would leave the secured area of ​​non-warfare".

But the Bundestag's report apparently does not trust itself: Elsewhere it is said that red lines "cannot be precisely defined". Rather, there are gray areas that need to be examined “in each specific case”.

That's the most honest answer. There are no sharp lines in this war. Vladimir Putin has been showing for 20 years that he is only interested in one form of justice - that of the strongest. For the West it remains a balancing act. He must avoid forcing Putin to escalate by openly intervening. Nevertheless, he must stand by Ukraine's side with self-confidence and courage - and not use the risk of escalation as an excuse for easy appeasement.

The EU should therefore not hide behind procedural questions and concerns, but decide on a training mission. In any case, Ukrainian soldiers are already being trained by Germany on Gepard tanks, and Great Britain is even training soldiers on Ukrainian soil.

The federal government should have learned from the days when an EU training mission was being debated. Germany prevented that at the time and argued that Russia should not be provoked. That was on February 21st. Three days later, Vladimir Putin attacked Ukraine.