US President Biden to attend emergency NATO Summit in Brussels, G7 and address EU leaders
US President Joe Biden would attend an emergency NATO Summit, address European Union leaders and hold meetings with G-7 leaders, his national security advisor has said on the eve of his departure for Brussels and Poland.
Biden is scheduled to leave for Europe to show a united front and take stock of the situation in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“He will attend an emergency NATO Summit, joined the leaders of the other 29 NATO Allies. He will join the G7 leaders. And he will address the 27 leaders of the European Union at a session of the European Council. He will have the opportunity to coordinate on the next phase of military assance to Ukraine,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters at a White House news conference on Tuesday.
“He will join our partners in imposing further sanctions on Russia and tightening the exing sanctions to crack down on evasion and to ensure robust enforcement,” Sullivan said, adding that Biden will work with Allies on longer-term adjustments to NATO force posture on the eastern flank.
“He will announce joint action on enhancing European energy security and reducing Europe’s dependence on Russian gas at long last. He will announce further American contributions to a coordinated humanitarian response to ease the suffering of civilians inside Ukraine and to respond to the growing flow of refugees,” he said.
From Brussels, Biden will travel to Poland, where he will engage with US troops who are now helping to defend NATO territory, and he will meet with experts involved in the humanitarian response. He will also hold a bilateral meeting with President Andrzej Duda of Poland.
“For the past few months, the West has been united. The President is travelling to Europe to ensure we stay united, to cement our collective resolve, to send a powerful message that we are prepared and committed to this for as long as it takes…helping the Ukrainian people defend themselves, imposing and increasing costs on Russia, and reinforcing the Western alliance,” Sullivan said.Sullivan said Biden will announce new sanctions, but on ensuring that there is joint effort to crack down on invasion.
“We have applied an enormous amount of economic pressure. In order to sustain and escalate that pressure over time, part of that is about new designations, new targets, but a big part of it is about effective enforcement and applying the lessons that we’ve learned from other circumstances where we have, in fact, imposed sanctions on countries,” he said.
