Europe does not have a seat at the negotiating table: the message could not be clearer from Donald Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg. This week, the US president opened discussions with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin – with no Ukrainians present – at a high-level meeting in Riyadh and then seemingly blamed Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky for starting the war.
The pressure is mounting, not just on Ukraine itself, but on the EU, which still appears to have no clear plan on what to do next. A hastily convened summit of European and NATO leaders in Paris, called by French President Emmanuel Macron, ended with no obvious concrete conclusions, beyond the usual verbal support for Kyiv and a vague commitment to boost European defence.
So why has the EU found itself in such a fix? Should it have come forward with its own diplomatic initiative before the US election? And is there anything it can do now to get off the diplomatic sidelines? We debate those questions with two MEPs at the European Parliament.
Programme prepared by Perrine Desplats, Isabelle Romero and Luke Brown
Leave a Comment