The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, has warned member states not to fall into the Russian “trap” of derailing the debate over who should represent the bloc in any future peace talks on Ukraine.
“This is a trap that Russia wants us to enter into, that we discuss who talks to them, while they are already choosing who is suitable and who is not,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in the Cyprus port city of Limassol. “Let’s not fall into that trap.”
Earlier this month, Moscow had suggested former German Chancellor and Kremlin friend Gerhard Schröder as a mediator, while Finnish President Alexander Stubb, former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi and even former German Chancellor Angela Merkel had also been proposed.
But Callas immediately rejected such ideas and said: “The conversation [are] Always a team effort. You have ‘good cops’, you have ‘bad cops’, you have a strategy. Which substance is more important.”
“The name of the negotiator will be decided by Europe, not Mr. Putin,” Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said.
Ukraine is pressuring Europe to play a more forceful role in the negotiations, especially as the United States is distracted by the conflict in the Middle East.
“Europe must engage in negotiations,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote this month. “It is important to have a strong voice and presence in this process, and it is worth determining who will represent Europe in particular.”
But an EU diplomat told Reuters news agency that there is still reluctance in Europe to assume Washington’s role of neutral mediator:
“It is hard to see how the EU can become a mediator or broker in the negotiations and step in for the US, given how much we have supported Ukraine.”