MEPs were asked to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 13 voted no. Here's why
From a TV screen above the plenary of the European Parliament on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made an impassioned call for Europe to prove that it supported his invaded country.
Earlier, parliamentarians had stood at their desks applauding Ukraine and wearing blue and yellow flags. Outside the parliament, Ukrainians and their supporters maintained a noisy vigil.
Sat at a table wearing a t-shirt, Zelenskyy’s speech was so moving that even the parliament's translator was choked with tears. After a debate, MEPs were then asked to vote on a resolution that called on Russia to cease the violence and condemned the war Vladimir Putin had started.
A massive majority - 637 MEPs - from the far left to the far right, from Romania to Portugal to Finland, united and voted yes.
Mick Wallace voted no.
“Much of the resolution is important and necessary,” Wallace told Euronews on Wednesday.
“It correctly condemns Russian aggression and calls for humanitarian support for Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees. These are terms we wholeheartedly support.”
But much of it, Wallace said, was not. It called for the strengthening of NATO’s forward military presence, a dramatic increase in defence spending and the strengthening of the European pillar within NATO. It calls for the replacement of Russian with American oil, extracted through fracking.
“We sought to remove these elements from the resolution, but the majority in the European Parliament has voted to keep them. We are now asked to vote on the text as a whole, which includes these provisions. We are opposed to war, and we are opposed to this resolution.”
Wallace wasn’t alone in opposing the resolution on Tuesday, six others from the parliament’s Left group also voted no: Clare Daly,
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