Europe can only seek peace from within

A view shows the burnt-out Crocus City Hall following a deadly attack on the concert venue outside Moscow, Russia, on March 26. Following five years of reflection and deliberations since the end of World War II, then French foreign minister Robert Schuman proposed the Schuman Declaration — creating a European Coal and Steel Community under the control of a common High Authority — on May 9, 1950, in the hope of ending the conflict between France and Germany and preventing another war in Europe. To maintain peace in Europe, the EU should distance itself from the US-led NATO's military maneuverings and instead work toward reconciliation with Russia. More than 30,000 people have been killed or wounded in the Ukraine conflict, and thousands of refugees have entered the EU via Poland and other Eastern European countries, causing one of the largest refugee waves in European history and plunging the EU into a humanitarian crisis that has become an immense burden on its social welfare system, and a risk to its social stability. Since the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, French President Emmanuel Macron has been accusing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz of over-relying on the US and doing nothing to advance the EU's common security and defense policy.