Roberta Metsola on Monday urged European leaders to offer real hope to Ukraine, lest it looks elsewhere.

The president of the European parliament also called on the European Union to start planning its long-term engagement in the region beyond the immediacy of emergency help to Ukraine, mindful that public opinion may start to shift or wane as the war drags on, prices stay high and Russian misinformation persists.

Metsola was speaking at a meeting of EU heads of government aimed at seeking agreement on an EU embargo on Russian oil exports. Hungary is currently holding out in view of its dependence on oil imports from Russia.

Metsola said that what the European Union had achieved so far was  unprecedented.

"So far, public opinion has been with us. Our people have opened their homes and their hearts to six million Ukrainians. They have largely accepted that there is a price to pay for the war and they have demanded a strong response. My concern now is what happens when this inevitably shifts. When the so-called “CNN effect”of the war, coupled with Russian disinformation and misinformation puts us all under increased pressure or when prices remain high.

"We must remain steadfast and start planning our long-term engagement in the region beyond the immediacy of emergency help to Ukraine. Europe must lead and must remain in the lead," she said.

She said that granting Ukraine EU membership candidate status would give it hope. It would open doors to Ukraine to participate in different programmes and allow space and time for reforms to take place.

Candidate status had the ability to transform countries, she said.

"What Ukraine needs right now is hope and perspective, or we will force Kyiv to look elsewhere."

The EU, she added, must become a real global power for democracy - flying the flag of liberal democracies in a world that is becoming more complicated and more dangerous.

Turning to sanctions on Russia, she said the European Commission has been bold but the EU needs to move further. "I really hope there is an agreement today, we cannot afford there not to be. Our aim needs to remain to disentangle ourselves from Russian energy. We should not be the ones to blink, but there is a limit to how much flexibility we can allow without losing credibility vis-à-vis our populations and look weak in the face of a Russia that, we know, shows no respect for weakness."

Food crisis and energy independence

Referring to the looming global food crisis she said the EU needed to find ways to get grain moving out of Ukraine to where it is most needed in the world. 

Europe also needed to ensure energy independence while protecting European households from severe price fluctuations.

"We should work on developing common mechanisms and purchasing platforms on gas and optimise our electricity market so that they fend off future price volatility. The swift conclusion of negotiations on the gas storage requirement shows we can deliver - but we need more. Our investments in energy and in the green transition must be seen as much as a security issue as it is an environmental one," she added.

Security and defence

Metsola said security and defence is also fast becoming an existential question for the EU.

"We need to have the tools to defend ourselves and we can only do that together. The bottom line is that we need to work on cooperation, inter-operability and pool our resources more efficiently. We need to respond and we can do so in a manner that complements rather than competes with NATO. This will have budgetary implications. There will be a necessity to increase our defence budgets and we need to see how better to re-direct common funds towards enhancing our defence capabilities."

Concluding she referred to economic flexibility and the EU decision to loosen up its debt and deficit rules until the end of 2023. While that could be helpful in the immediate term, with a post-COVID scenario, the war in Ukraine and the  ongoing energy transition, the EU must not allow excessive debt to limit the potential of the generations to come, she said.