The leaders of the 27 EU member states are meeting today, Friday the 13th, in Dublin for an informal European Council that follows the resumption of negotiations between Ukraine and Russia brokered by the United States, on the 10th and 11th November in Abu Dhabi. One of the key topics of the gathering will be, at the request of the Italian Council President Meloni, Europe’s representation at the upcoming talks.
- The bloc’s leaders were gathered yesterday, Thursday the 12th, in Ireland for the summit of the European Political Community.
- On this occasion, the Ukrainian president Zelensky reported on the Abu Dhabi discussions, and notably Moscow’s willingness, in coordination with Washington, to push for a reshaping of the continent’s security architecture.
- Present in Dublin, the European Council President, Costa, declared: “There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Europe had a European security architecture that worked until it was gradually undermined, then finally destroyed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
The Estonian Prime Minister, Kristen Michal, stated on Wednesday the 11th that he favored Europe being represented in the negotiations by the High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas, and by Costa. If these have the powers to represent the Union during the negotiations, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz downplayed yesterday the urgency of appointing a single representative to deal with Moscow.
- Macron is among, alongside the Finnish president Alexander Stubb and the Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, the only European leaders in office who have resumed contact with Putin in telephone calls.
- If 10 leaders of the bloc have stated since January 2025 their desire to resume dialogue with Putin, only 7 have limited themselves to publicly affirming their support for an envoy or a European format, including those of the three Baltic states, according to a review of the magazine.
- The Spanish Prime Minister Sánchez, whose majority will be put to the test on November 29 in snap elections, expressed in June his support for opening a diplomatic channel through Costa with Moscow.
The European representatives present in Abu Dhabi were not invited to take part in the discussions, but were briefed by the American and Ukrainian teams “before and after the talks.” While Witkoff and Kushner publicly claim to want to involve Europeans in the negotiations – Witkoff having said that it was “important that they be associated” – the head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, said at a press conference on Wednesday, November 11, that he did not “quite understand what can be talked about with them.”
Ouchakov moreover minimized Thursday the 12th Witkoff’s remarks, who had suggested that Europeans would take part in the next cycle of discussions.
- The Europeans publicly refuse to discuss a new security architecture as long as a settlement on the end of the war has not been achieved.
- According to sources cited by Axios, the European officials present in Abu Dhabi would, however, have agreed “to engage simultaneously on both fronts, while stressing that the final decisions regarding the European security architecture would be taken only once the war in Ukraine is over” .
The shift from negotiations focused on the conflict toward a new “security architecture” allows the Kremlin to project a façade of goodwill toward the White House, while continuing its war in Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian president, Putin would have confided to his closest aides the intention to “destroy life” in the country’s major cities, from Kyiv to Odesa .