The KAS Greece/Cyprus Office, in collaboration with ELIAMEP, organized on 3 March 2022 an online discussion on "War in Ukraine: Security Challenges in Europe and the World". Speakers were Christoph Heusgen, President of the Munich Security Conference, f. Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the UN, and Loukas Tsoukalis, President of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) and Professor of Sciences Po in Paris.
After 80 years of peace, war is being waged on European ground. Both speakers admitted that they did not expect an all-out attack to be launched.
The main topics of the discussion were the causes of the conflict, the possible effects of the war on European enlargement and integration, the role of China and the UN and the consequences of Western sanctions on Russia.
Christoph Heusgen acknowledged the failure of the Minsk Agreements to prevent a war, as well as the fact that we are far from an era of universal peace and respect for human rights. In addition, he stressed that President Putin underestimated the resistance of the Ukrainian people and the reaction of the European community, as well as that this invasion will be his own Vietnam. Finally, Mr. Tsoukalis argued that after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the international community lost a huge opportunity to create the right conditions for a long lasting peace in Europe.
The discussion was moderated by Tassos Telloglou, Journalist at Kathimerini.
