The Normandy Summit in Paris

The Paris Normandy Summit was held on December 9 in the salons of the Elysée Palace in the presence of Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic, Angela Merkel, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation and Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine, newly elected on May 20, 2019.

Volodymyr Zelensky is a Ukrainian humorist, producer, actor, screenwriter, director and statesman, President of Ukraine.

After five years of war, more than 13,000 dead and a situation blocked for a few years, Paris came to the bedside of Ukraine by trying to renew the dialogue between the National Army and the pro-Russian separatists in eastern country. This summit organized at the Elysee Palace will allow the resumption of the dialogue between Ukraine and Russia, suspected of arming the rebels.

The Minsk Accords (the Protocol of September 5, 2014, the Memorandum of September 19, 2014 and the package of measures of February 12, 2015) remain the basis for future discussions towards an agreement to stabilize the region in a conflict zone.

Measures have been decided in order to stabilize the conflict zone:

The implementation of a demining plan,

A disengagement of forces and equipment by the end of March 2020,

The release and exchange of all those detained by the end of 2020,

New crossing points along the contact line, based on humanitarian criteria,

A safe and secure passage across Ukraine for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Ukraine (MSOU) Special Observation Mission to be possible.

Measures to implement the political clauses of the Minsk agreements:

An agreement on all the legal aspects of the special provisions of self-administration – a special statute – of certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, stipulated in the Minsk agreements of 2015 in order to ensure their proper functioning on a permed,

The absolute need to integrate the Steinmeier Formula into Ukrainian legislation in accordance with the version finalized in the framework of N4 and the Trilateral Contact Group.

Monitoring:

The parties call on their political advisers and their foreign ministers to ensure the implementation of the agreements and to plan a next meeting within four months to secure the local elections and to address the political conditions.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday (December 28th) that he expects a prisoner swap between Kiev and pro-Russian separatists on Sunday.

On December 29, 2019, the President of the French Republic and the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany thanked the participants in the Trilateral Contact Group meeting under the OSCE, which enabled the exchange of detained persons. They stressed the fact that the National Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as well as all international organizations should have free access to detained persons and to the search for missing persons.

This summit between these four countries enabled Sunday, December 29, the release and exchange of prisoners in eastern Ukraine. This exchange follows on from the commitment made at the Normandy summit on December 9 at the Palais de l’Elysée.

This release and exchange is above all a long-awaited humanitarian measure. This release must bring the parties to trust each other again and allow the full and integral implementation of the cease-fire, as the Trilateral Contact Group said on December 18.

Daria Morozova, the government ombudsman of the self-proclaimed Donetsk Republic, said that Kiev and the separatists had reached an agreement on a prisoner swap on Sunday. The two separatist territories of Donetsk and Lugansk will recover 87 people and 55 people will be handed over to Kiev. No identity of the prisoners has been transmitted.

France and Germany will continue the discussions started under the Normandy format in order to prepare the new summit in the coming months, devoted to political and security conditions.

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