Petteri Orpo’s cautious support for Zelensky’s victory plan – “Ukraine’s place is in NATO”

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi visited Brussels on Thursday and presented his so-called victory plan to the leaders of the EU countries.

The victory plan has a lot of Ukraine’s long-term hopes. For example, Ukraine wants to be invited to become a member of NATO and to be allowed to use the long-range weapons provided by the allies in Russia.

Zelenskyi also stated that the plan is to strengthen the country and be ready for diplomacy.

Prime Minister of Finland Petteri Orpo (kok) stated after the meeting that Zelenskyi’s plan is a plan for creating the conditions for victory.

He said that Finland’s position on the profit plan is still being discussed at home. According to Orpo, however, it can be said that Finland supports the plan on a general level.

“We have long been convinced that Ukraine’s place is in the European Union and NATO. We support Ukraine’s NATO membership, but we will come back to what schedule we can move forward with,” Orpo stated.

The meeting did not reach an agreement on extending the renewal interval of sanctions on frozen Russian assets, which has been a condition for the United States to join the loan promised to Ukraine by the G7 countries. At the meeting, Hungary still opposed the sanctions decision.

You said before the start of the meeting that the pressure must be hard Hungary Viktor Orbania and that a strong message of supporting Ukraine must come from the meeting. Did these things come true?

“Yes, because there was no situation where there was a special confrontation. Orbán certainly does not support the winning plan as such, but that was not the question today. The big message was that the strong support for Ukraine will continue,” Orpo stated.

EU countries are ready to increase sanctions pressure by setting import duties on Russian and Belarusian agricultural products.

Solutions for immigration management

The migration conclusions of the summit state that Russia, Belarus or any other country cannot be allowed to misuse EU values, such as the right to asylum.

The European Council expressed its solidarity with Poland and those member states facing such challenges.

The conclusions also state that the EU should consider new ways to prevent and combat illegal immigration.

According to Orpo, the views on immigration in the European Council are converging all the time.

“There is a great desire to find solutions to ensure that immigration is controlled.”

According to Orpo, at the same time that the EU wants to speed up processes and improve border security, it needs, wants and is looking for work-based immigration.

“Legal routes do exist. The biggest threat to legal immigration is illegal immigration.”

In its meeting, the European Council also expressed its concern about the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East. The leaders of the EU countries demand that all parties refrain from violence and comply with international law.

The European Council condemned Israel’s attacks on the United Nations UNIFIL peacekeeping force in Lebanon.