Strong reactions have been sparked within the European Union<\/b> following communication between European officials and the Kremlin.<\/b><\/p>\n
In fact, some governments are complaining that they were not informed in advance, as reported by Politico and the Washington Post<\/b>.<\/p>\n
Pedro Lurti<\/b>, chief of staff to European Council President Ant\u00f3nio Costa, reportedly had two phone conversations in recent weeks with an official in Moscow<\/b>, as part of an effort to explore ways to restart negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin<\/b>.<\/p>\n
At a time when U.S. efforts to end the war in Ukraine appear to have stalled, European capitals appear divided over whether to prioritize diplomacy or military aid to Ukraine.<\/p>\n
With the start of the EU leaders\u2019 summit in Brussels<\/b> on Thursday evening, it became clear that several governments were unaware of the initiative, while some are reportedly rejecting it, according to diplomatic sources cited by Politico.<\/p>\n
The Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia) reacted strongly to the prospect of a rapprochement with Russia, while several leaders learned of the talks only through media reports and expressed outrage at the lack of information.<\/p>\n
Pedro Lurti<\/b> briefed the ambassadors of the 27 member states on Wednesday (June 17), following the publication of the phone calls revealed by Bloomberg, acknowledging the leak but maintaining that the contacts took place at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy<\/b> regarding European participation in the peace talks.<\/p>\n
He did not confirm any further communications but pledged to keep the ambassadors informed of any developments. At the same time, he reportedly also spoke with Putin\u2019s national security adviser.<\/p>\n
The internal disagreement reflects deeper tensions within the EU. Officials from the European Council and the European Commission argue that any future contacts with Moscow must be conducted by an institution representing all 27 member states, rather than by individual national leaders.<\/p>\n
At the same time, the E3 group<\/b> (Germany, France, the United Kingdom) is pushing to lead the negotiations, arguing that it has already agreed on this approach with Zelenskyy during a meeting in London.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need a framework capable of taking action<\/i>,\u201d said a senior German official, noting that the initiative\u2019s legitimacy would be strengthened by the participation of as many European partners as possible and close coordination with Kyiv and Washington.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Poland<\/b> and Italy<\/b> also appear to be vying for an active role in the talks.<\/p>\n
This standoff highlights the difficulties the EU<\/b> faces in establishing a unified position in a potential peace process for Ukraine, as, despite the agreement on a European presence at the negotiating table, the question of who will speak on behalf of the Union remains open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Strong reactions have been sparked within the European Union following communication between European officials and the Kremlin. In fact, some …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}