Russian war of aggression
Klingbeil: No NATO membership for Ukraine as long as there is war
SPD leader Lars Klingbeil has commented on Ukraine’s NATO membership. photo
© Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa
This week, the 31 NATO member states are meeting in Vilnius – according to SPD leader Lars Klingbeil, it is clear what is at stake with regard to Ukraine and what is not.
However, the summit of the 31 member states in Vilnius, Lithuania this Tuesday and Wednesday will send a clear signal of close military cooperation with Ukraine, he said. Among other things, it is about strengthening the training of Ukrainian soldiers and already introducing Ukraine to NATO standards. And on the question of further arms deliveries to Ukraine, Klingbeil assured: “Whatever we can really hand over will be delivered.”
Heusgen refers to Article 5
The head of the Munich Security Conference, Christoph Heusgen, made a similar statement. “Taking in Ukraine in the current phase of the conflict is out of the question. That would drag the alliance directly into the war, because then, according to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, the obligation to provide assistance would be due,” he told the “Rheinische Post” and the Bonn “General Indicator”. However, the NATO summit should send out the signal “that Ukraine belongs to the NATO family.”
The former German UN ambassador also advocated maximum military support for Ukraine. “We must provide Ukraine with all the military means that the country needs to defend itself, otherwise Ukraine will cease to exist.”
Ukraine: Legally no obstacle
From the summit in Lithuania, Ukraine expects “a clear and unambiguous invitation and direction to join NATO,” as the Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany, Oleksii Makeiev, told the German Press Agency at the weekend.
According to Paragraph 6 of the authoritative “Study on NATO Enlargement,” states must first settle any territorial disputes peacefully. “The resolution of such disputes would be a factor in deciding whether a state should be invited to join the alliance,” it said. From Ukraine’s point of view, the defensive war on its own territory is, from a purely legal point of view, not yet an obstacle to joining NATO. Paragraph 6 in question does not clearly rule this out.
Bundestag report: No war participation of NATO countries
The scientific services of the Bundestag currently see no legal evidence that Germany or other NATO countries are involved in the Ukraine war through their arms deliveries – as Russia accuses them of. “There are still no explicit legal opinions in international law that would rate the support of the NATO states in favor of Ukraine as a form of conflict participation,” says a recent report commissioned by Left-wing MP Sevim Dagdelen the German Press Agency is available.
However, the scientists complain that the criteria for conflict participation in international law are not defined clearly enough. It’s not just about the “hardware”, i.e. the scope and quality of the weapons supplied.
The “software” must also be taken into account, i.e. the extent to which states are involved in the coordination, targeting or control of combat operations, for example via information from their secret services or military advice and training. “The challenge for the theory of international law is to outline the criteria for conflict participation more precisely and to link them back to the corresponding state practice in order to increase their acceptance.”