The EU must be involved in negotiations with Russia over the end of the Ukraine war in order to map out Europe’s future security architecture, the European Council president has said,
Financial Times reports.
The call comes as António Costa and other senior European leaders prepare to meet in Paris to discuss their response to US President Donald Trump’s decision to begin talks to end the almost three-year war with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
The Paris talks come as the US and Russia’s top diplomats prepare for face-to-face talks in Saudi Arabia, and will focus on how to respond to the fast-moving negotiations, and Trump’s demand for Europe to reduce its reliance on US military support.
Trump last week announced bilateral talks with Putin to end the almost three-year war, alarming European capitals that fear a deal could be made without their involvement.
“If Trump really wants that the Europeans assume greater responsibility for their own security, then of course the Europeans need to be the key actor in designing the new security architecture,” Costa told the Financial Times.
“It is not only about Ukraine,” Costa, who represents the bloc’s 27 national leaders, said in an interview at the Munich Security Conference this weekend. “The negotiations on the new security architecture need to take into account that Russia is a global threat, not only a threat to Ukraine.”
Costa’s remarks came as European capitals reeled from a week of unexpected announcements from the Trump administration, including the Saudi Arabia talks between US secretary of state Marco Rubio and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, and a scathing speech from US vice-president JD Vance that accused European governments of infringing the rule of law and suffering from a “threat from within” that was more dangerous than Russia.
