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EU and Ukraine flags in front of the European Parliament
Photo: Pascal Bastien/AP
Even the location of the conference has symbolic power: the heads of state and government of the EU will meet at the Palace of Versailles on Thursday and Friday.
According to a draft for the summit communiqué, which is available to SPIEGEL, not only the end of dependence on Russian gas, coal and oil supplies should be decided there.
The latest draft of the declaration also contains – unlike an earlier version – a reference to the EU's duty to provide assistance in the event of an attack on one of its members.
Should the passage also appear in the final version of the summit declaration, diplomats believe it would be a clear warning from the EU to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
One will "continue to invest in our mutual aid under Article 42, paragraph 7," says the draft.
The article of the EU Lisbon treaty is similar to the better-known article 5 of the NATO treaty, which stipulates that an attack on one member is treated as an attack on all.
The EU counterpart also states that in the event of an armed attack on a member state, the other EU states must mobilize “all the help and support in their power”.
However, each country is free to decide whether it will help militarily or in some other way.
The mutual assistance clause was used for the first and only time after the terrorist attacks on France in November 2015.
Warning to Moscow - and gesture to Washington
However, Article 5 of NATO has priority: should the defense alliance declare an alliance, the EU article would no longer be necessary.
The explicit mention of Article 42 in the summit communiqué would therefore primarily be a symbolic gesture - not only towards Moscow, but probably also towards Washington, to underline that the EU intends to do significantly more for its own security in the future.
The latter also emerges from other passages in the draft.
One wants to "take further decisive steps towards the development of European sovereignty," it says, for example.
Among other things, they want to strengthen defense capacities by investing in skills that are necessary to carry out “the full range of missions and operations”.
The armaments industry and protection against cyber attacks "especially on our critical infrastructure" are also to be strengthened.
At the same time, the EU wants to become more independent in its energy supply.
"We have agreed to phase out our dependence on Russian gas, oil and coal imports," says the draft of the final declaration.
To this end, the EU should cut back on the use of fossil fuels overall and increasingly source its gas – 40 percent of which currently comes from Russia – from other suppliers.
Controversy over response to skyrocketing energy prices
All of this should signal one thing above all: in view of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU is determined to move forward together.
Behind the scenes, however, there are also disputes, especially over the answer to skyrocketing energy prices.
Some member countries - according to diplomats above all Italy, Spain and Greece - are demanding a cap on prices.
Other countries, especially in the north and west of the EU, are strictly against it.
Their argument: the rising prices for fossil fuels are forcing the private sector to switch to renewable energies and free themselves from Russia more quickly.
Capping prices would weaken this effect again.
An immediate cessation of energy imports from Russia is off the table anyway - because Chancellor Olaf Scholz has made it clear that he is against it.
The energy price cap is "at best delusional, at worst dangerous," blasphemed a diplomat from a western EU country.
Believing that the high prices could go away in this way is akin to “slowing your car up a cliff, closing your eyes and thinking nothing will happen”.
The true price of globally traded commodities such as oil and gas would remain despite a cap.
What is above the cap would still have to be paid for – and that is what the critics fear, by companies and taxpayers in richer EU countries.
They therefore advocate rapid and massive investments in renewable energies.
The EU Commission sees it similarly.
On Tuesday she presented plans for greater EU energy self-sufficiency – and fast.
By the end of this year, the EU's demand for Russian gas could be reduced by two-thirds, it said.
According to the agency's plans, the EU should no longer have to import any gas from Russia "well before 2030" - by expanding renewable energies more quickly and sourcing more gas from the USA and Qatar.