By Reuters
ATHENS, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Europe should wake up and build its own defence policy following a dramatic shift by the United States over Ukraine and geopolitical developments in recent months, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said late on Wednesday.
U.S. President Donald Trump upended U.S. policy on the Ukraine war this week, denouncing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as a "dictator" and suggesting Kyiv started the three year war between Ukraine and Russia.
Trump warned that Zelenskiy had to move quickly to secure peace or risk losing his country, deepening a feud between the two leaders that has alarmed European officials.
The U.S. and Russia held peace talks in Saudi Arabia this week without Ukraine, stunning Kyiv and its European allies.
Ukraine has said it will not accept a deal imposed on it without its consent, which European leaders have echoed, while Russia has ruled out conceding land it has won.
Addressing a business conference in the city of Thessaloniki late on Wednesday, Mitsotakis said that Europe needed to "wake up from the geopolitical and economic lethargy into which it has unfortunately fallen for some time".
"Recent developments and this different view of things from the United States now oblige us not only to face the truth, but to move at a very high speed and implement decisions that we have been discussing for long," he said.
Mitsotakis pointed to Europe setting up a defence policy which will allow it to develop its own deterrent power and reduce reliance on the United States.
His comments were made shortly after he joined virtually a second meeting that France convened with European leaders and Canada to discuss Ukraine.
Europe has relied heavily on U.S. might within NATO for security and Trump has consistently demanded Europe spend more on defence. Trump has now demanded that Europe provide more military muscle for any future Ukraine peace deal, but experts say Europe would be stretched to do so without U.S. assistance.
(Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou; Editing by Michael Perry)
