(Adnkronos) – The European Union will collectively decide Europe’s envoy to help mediate dialogue between Ukraine and its invader Russia, Italy’s foreign minister Antonio Tajani said in Rome on Thursday.
“The whole European Union will decide this, not (Russia’s president Vladimir) Putin or individual countries,” Tajani told reporters on the sidelines of the private Luiss University’s Diplomatic and Security Forum.
Tajani’s comments came after Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky met Britain, Germany and France’s leaders in London on Sunday. Zelenksy offered to resume talks in a letter to Putin last week which suggested that Europe be involved in the negotiations.
In the letter, Zelensky renewed his call to European leaders to fill a vacuum left after US-mediated talks stalled over Moscow’s refusal to compromise on territory and Washington shifted its focus to ending the over-three-month-old war with Iran.
Recent Russian military setbacks and the massive economic cost of the war may now make a peace settlement more appealing to the Kremlin according to observers, but European leaders have said they envisage themselves as additional participants in talks and do not plan to replace Washington as mediators.
Putin has said he would like former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to negotiate on behalf of Europe but EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas rule him out last month saying Putin should not choose the bloc’s negotiator and underlining that Schroeder could not be impartial as he “has been the high-level lobbyist for Russian state-owned companies”.
German foreign minister Johann Wadephul has said Europe should take part in the talks, represented by officials from the ‘E3’ group of powers — Germany, France and the UK.
