Prime Minister of Italy George Maloni offered to extend the effect of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty to Ukraine without its formal accession to NATO. She believes that such an approach will guarantee long-term and effective security for Ukraine.
According to Melanie, providing Ukraine with NATO’s collective security guarantees without official membership would be a more effective option than, for example, deploying peacekeeping forces to monitor the ceasefire regime.
“Extending to Ukraine the same protection that NATO countries have would certainly be much more effective, although it would be something different from NATO membership. I think it would be a stable, long-term, effective security guarantee, much better than some of the proposals that I see.”, the Prime Minister noted.
Regarding the differences between her initiative and Ukraine’s full membership in NATO, the head of the Italian government explained that this mechanism provides for the application of provisions on mutual defense “also for the protection of Ukraine even on the territory outside NATO, regardless of Kyiv’s membership.”
“The dispatch of unspecified military contingents, British or otherwise, is the most difficult and perhaps the least effective solution. I have spoken about this, repeated and also ruled out the possibility that the Italian military could be sent in this context.”, – emphasized Meloni.
