A movement not formalized, but already criticized. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has only left his country once since the start of the war in February 2022, has been invited to attend a European summit. summit that, according to several sources and after a leak, should take place in Brussels starting this Thursday, various media report, including the guardian.
The visit was reported 48 hours earlier by the Italian media, including The Stamp, and also announced by the European People’s Party (EPP), a center-right political formation with a group in the European Parliament.
“We look forward to welcoming you to Brussels, Mr. President”, can be read in particular in a tweet deleted by the EPP but captured by the Politico site.
The President of the European Parliament highlighted
According guardian, the president of the European Council Charles Michel, who organizes the European summits, makes the European Parliament responsible for disseminating this information. One of his spokesmen, who did not confirm or deny Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Brussels on Thursday “for security reasons”, only indicated that the president was invited to participate in the visit to Brussels.
The person targeted by Charles Michel, according to the British newspaper, is none other than Roberta Metsola, the president of the European Parliament whose team is accused of having revealed this information. She is also a member of the EPP, which briefly publicized this visit by the Ukrainian president.
Volodymyr Zelensky held a summit last week in Kyiv that brought together several European leaders to discuss Ukraine’s request to join the European Union. However, he had avoided answering the question about a trip to Brussels, citing “great risks”.
Just a trip abroad for Zelensky since the war
The dispute between the European Council and the European Parliament is not an isolated case. In fact, several European diplomats have expressed the disagreement between Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, who are competing for the support given to Kyiv.
Volodymyr Zelensky has only left Ukraine once since the Russian invasion. A trip secretly organized by the teams of the Ukrainian president and his American counterpart Joe Biden. In fact, Volodymyr Zelensky had gone to Washington DC last December to meet with the tenant of the White House and to speak before the US Congress. The visit, formalized only when he arrived on US soil for security reasons, had, however, been revealed the day before.
Source: BFM TV
