A “stronger and united Europe” — i.e., one with the United Kingdom still in the EU — could have been enough to dissuade Vladimir Putin from his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
That was the bold claim made by Guy Verhofstadt, the Belgian MEP and former European Parliament point man on Brexit, in a radio interview Tuesday.
Verhofstadt told LBC that the “brutal invasion” by Russia “has nothing to do with the extension of NATO, it has nothing to do with … the European Union. It’s really an attempt by Putin to restore the old Soviet Union.”
He said that: “A united Europe, certainly on defense matters, would make an enormous difference.”
“I think maybe without Brexit maybe there was no invasion. I don’t know, I guess that he would see a far stronger and united Europe on the other side,” he added.
Verhofstadt was speaking on the third anniversary of the U.K. leaving the EU. He said he hoped that Britain will one day rejoin the bloc and that Ukraine can also join, “why not within five years?”
