Who will negotiate with Russia? Brussels is solving a real conundrum, Ukraine and Europe itself are at stake
Henry Kissinger is said to have once asked the question of who to call if he wanted to talk to Europe. The same could now be raised by US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin after a debate broke out in Europe about who should be the main European negotiator with Russia in negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.
It should be added that Europe was in fact forced to take such a step by a serious turn in American policy towards normalizing relations with Russia, which Trump sees as the most effective tool to get the Kremlin to serious peace negotiations.
Europe wants to prevent Ukraine and, by extension, European security from being negotiated without it – but so far, the main negotiating channel with Moscow has been fully controlled by Trump's proxies Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. They share some information with Europe, but certainly not all of them.
Europe has already been taken aback by Trump's meeting with Putin in Anchorage or the latest agreement on the supply of Russian diesel to the US.
At the same time, Europe could already have some kind of negotiating channel. In June, it became known that the President of the European Council, António Costa, had offered to negotiate with Moscow. The head of his office, Pedro Lourtí, contacted Putin's representatives twice and probed whether negotiations could take place.
This met with resistance from French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who had the idea that the trio of Paris, Berlin and London – then still with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer – should decide on the strategy towards Russia on behalf of Europe.
Wolfgang Ischinger, an experienced German diplomat and chairman of the Munich Security Conference, asked a harsh question about these "maneuvers": "How can the EU be taken seriously if it cannot even resolve such issues in advance and confidentially?"
We are now five months further, but the selection of a negotiator is more like an unofficial audition, in which individual names with their pluses and minuses are dropped.
An unnamed EU diplomat summed up the situation very aptly for Politico: "We can't show up with two or three people all speaking on behalf of the EU. The choice of who will ultimately represent the EU will be based on what would bring the most value, not on personal power struggles or narcissistic preferences."
He thus eliminated the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen or the EU chief diplomat Kaja Kallas (with whom even the Americans do not talk). It can hardly be the outgoing Macron or Merz. Costa does not want to get involved anymore.
According to the British North The Telegraph, European leaders are considering that President Petr Pavel could be the negotiator. But it is unlikely, the negotiator cannot do without good relations with Trump. And Pavel is not strong in this, unlike Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who can also understand Russia more with regard to the long-term conflict between the Finns and the Russians.
Stubb may have taken the first step towards his nomination: on Tuesday, he surprisingly spoke on the phone with Putin along with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stør. They talked about the possibilities of ending Russia's war against Ukraine. It is hoped that this opens up space for direct talks with European participation. However, both Scandinavian politicians emphasized that they acted as representatives of their countries, not as representatives of Europe, during the call.
Therefore, reaching a consensus on the selection of a negotiator for the Union with a strong negotiating mandate may be even more difficult in view of the current setting of the Union's functioning and its internal disputes.
But there is a lot at stake: if the Union fails to do so, it will be another tangible confirmation of the weakening of its influence in global politics.
Miloš Balabán