In an interview with the NOW television channel, conducted by journalist Judite Sousa on Tuesday, António Costa was asked if, as president of the European Council, he intends to be a ‘mentor for a peace solution in Ukraine’.
‘No, I don’t have that pretence. I intend to help the European Union contribute to Ukraine obtaining the just and lasting peace to which it is entitled, to which the Ukrainians are entitled and which we Europeans need Ukraine to obtain because that is the guarantee that we, too, will have a just and lasting peace for ourselves,’ he said.
Asked if he thought that, as president of the European Council, he would be able to negotiate with Vladimir Putin, the president of the Russian Federation, Costa replied: ‘There is only one person with the mandate to talk to the president of Russia and negotiate with the president of Russia, and that is the president of Ukraine.’
‘Only Ukraine has the legitimacy to negotiate with Russia, and that legitimacy is one that we cannot weaken or diminish,’ he emphasised.
António Costa emphasised that Ukraine is ‘a sovereign, democratic state that has chosen its political leadership’, which has been exercised ‘with enormous courage and in absolutely unimaginable circumstances’.
‘Therefore, we must respect that leadership and it is our duty to support it because that support for Ukraine is support for ourselves,’ he said.
Costa recalled that the EU has already said that it will support Kyiv ‘in whatever is necessary and for as long as it is necessary’ and that ‘the terms of a just and lasting peace can only be defined by Ukraine because only the aggressor has the legitimacy to define the moment to end the war’.
The president-elect of the European Council emphasised that the Portuguese have a ‘good reason’ to understand the importance of being firm in affirming international law, going back to the time of the Indonesian occupation of Timor-Leste.
‘For almost two decades, Portugal was often isolated, defending a small area of territory, which is part of an island, in an archipelago that has hundreds of islands and very few thousands of people. But it was this firmness that meant that one of the great global powers today – Indonesia – had to agree to respect international law,’ he said.
For the former Portuguese prime minister, you can’t be less firm with Russia now than you were with Indonesia then.
‘We can’t ask the Ukrainians to be more tolerant of the aggressor than we asked the Timorese,’ he said.
In this interview, Costa also said that he is enthusiastic about taking on the role of President of the European Council, ‘but also with the awareness that it is a particularly demanding mission at a time when the world and the EU are living today’.
‘We are in a war situation, a situation in which the European economy has to make a huge effort to recover its dynamics, with the prospect of a new enlargement and the need for Europe to assert itself in this diverse world where it is and where we need to develop partnerships and find new friends in the new emerging powers: India, New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, South Africa,’ he said.
When asked who, between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, would be the best US President for the EU and transatlantic relations, Costa replied that looking at their programmes, the one who ‘will clearly strengthen transatlantic relations is Kamala Harris’.
When asked if European decision-makers were in any doubt about this, Costa replied, ‘No. If it were the Europeans who voted, I have no doubt who would win.’
