Europe will send a team of diplomats to Ukraine peace talks rather than a single envoy, EU leaders agreed on Friday at the end of a summit in Dublin.
European Council President António Costa said Europe would be represented by the EU institutions and five members of the “coalition of the willing” that backs Ukraine: Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Poland.
The decision followed weeks of debate over who would speak for Europe as the United States mediates between Moscow and Kyiv. Costa was widely seen as the most acceptable single candidate, backed by leaders from Estonia, Luxembourg and Poland.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas had also put herself forward. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, however, argued for keeping the existing five-country format.
U.S. envoy Jared Kushner and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after meeting in Dublin late on Thursday that Europe would take part in the next round of talks. The Kremlin had said Europe must first name its representative.
EU leaders also said Europe’s security architecture should not be part of the Ukraine-Russia peace negotiations.
The Kremlin said on Friday that Russia would be open to European countries taking part in the talks if it saw they were ready to contribute to the process. Merz dismissed the comments as “the same old game”.
“There will be no discussions about Ukraine without Ukraine, and no discussions about Europe without Europe. Furthermore, there is no need to talk about European security architecture. We have that already,” Merz told reporters in Dublin.
Russian officials have called for a broad agreement on Europe’s security architecture before the specifics of the war are addressed.
Before its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia demanded that NATO withdraw its forces from countries that joined the alliance after 1997, a demand NATO rejected.
Kallas warned that Russian calls to discuss Europe’s security architecture risked diverting attention from the need for a ceasefire. Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs described such discussions as “a trap”.
On Thursday, 43 European countries signed a declaration at the European Political Community summit in Dublin stating that any matter affecting European security must be decided with Europeans involved
Representatives from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the EU had already attended Russia-Ukraine talks in Abu Dhabi earlier this week. Both Moscow and Kyiv cited some progress, but there was no sign of a breakthrough on key issues such as territory.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson had backed a format of the five countries plus the EU institutions. “I’m quite flexible on that, so I think what we actually say is more important than the exact configuration of the people in the room,” he said.
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