Europe pushes for seat at Ukraine peace talks but lacks unified voice
[November 13, 2026]
By JILL LAWLESS and SAM McNEIL
DUBLIN (AP) — European nations are seeking an envoy to represent them in
talks on ending the Russia-Ukraine war, concerned that a U.S.-backed
process will leave them sidelined and Kyiv vulnerable as Moscow and
Washington decide the fate of a conflict that has roiled the continent.
Whether Europe should be represented by one person or a team — and who
should take on the role — is being debated Friday as leaders from the
27-nation European Union meet at a summit in Dublin. Senior EU officials
and politicians have been suggested, but there is not yet a consensus.
What the job might entail is also unclear and contested. But there is
broad agreement by governments from the U.K. to Ukraine on the need for
Europe to join the ongoing negotiations involving Moscow, Kyiv and
Washington.
“This needs to be resolved," Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin said as
he arrived at the summit, which will include talks on AI as well as the
Russia-Ukraine war.
“I would hope that today’s discussions bring clarity around this,” he
said. "It needs to be, in my view, finally decided upon within the next
week or two.”
Ukraine is eager for support from its European allies, as it's reluctant
to leave the talks solely in the hands of a U.S. administration that has
often seemed to lean toward Moscow’s views. Russia does not want
European countries involved in direct negotiations, complaining they are
financing and supplying Ukraine’s military effort.
European leaders also distrust U.S. President Donald Trump to negotiate
on their behalf after a series of tense standoffs over trade, Greenland
and conflicts in Iran and Ukraine.
“Without Europeans, there is no support for Ukraine,” French President
Emmanuel Macron said at a meeting of the European Political Community in
Dublin on Thursday. “There is no more U.S. support."
“At the end of the day, we will be the ones to define and decide for our
future security as Europeans,” he said.
Europe is broadly aligned but not unified
European leaders fear Russian President Vladimir Putin will press Trump
to back a peace settlement that weakens not just Ukraine but broader
European security. Putin has demanded NATO troops be pulled back from
Russia’s borders and that no European forces be deployed in Ukraine.
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham rejected the idea that Europe was
being sidelined during peace negotiations, saying European countries
were determined to “put a bit of a ring of steel around Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.”
As envoys from Washington, Moscow and Kyiv met in Abu Dhabi, several
European countries, including the U.K., France and Germany, attended
discussions nearby.
U.S. envoy Jared Kushner and Zelenskyy said after they met in Dublin
late Thursday that Europe would be part of the next round of talks.
Zelenskyy said Europe would send a negotiating team, adding, "They will
have a voice.”
“We cannot conclude this deal without the Europeans being at the table,”
Kushner said. He said Putin "is willing to give it a try.”
Supporters of a single envoy, like Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni,
argue that the absence of a united European voice has allowed individual
countries or small groups to engage in freelance diplomacy.
“There are too many different groupings discussing the issue,” she said.
Meloni has criticized a series of seemingly uncoordinated initiatives,
including a call to Putin by Finnish President Alexander Stubb and
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, that she said could undermine
European interests.
She has increasingly pushed for a common EU representative for Europe to
speak with “a single, authoritative voice” and requested a decision by
Friday in Dublin to be formalized in December in coordination with
non-EU partners in Europe like Britain and Norway.
Martin said that European representation at the negotiations “can't just
be European Union” because the Coalition of the Willing — a group of
over two dozen countries that have pledged military support to help
maintain a future peace in Ukraine — “has involved far more than the
European Union.”
“It's a European continentwide issue,” he said.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov argued that for Europe to join peace
talks, it first must name a representative. “The Europeans squabble like
spiders in a jar. If someone takes the initiative to establish contact
with the Russian side, those people face ostracism.”
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U.S. special envoys Steve Witkoff, right, Jared Kushner, U.S.
President Donald Trump's son-in-law, left, and Ukraine's President
Volodymyr Zelenskyy speak to the media at the airport in Dublin,
Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026.(AP Photo/Peter Morrison)
An old question with no clear answer
The question of who represents Europe is an old one. Europe itself
is loosely defined. Is it the 27-nation EU, the 32-nation NATO
military alliance made up mostly of European countries, the
29-nation Schengen zone, or the 47-nation European Political
Community?
That has frustrated Washington in the past and present.
After this week's U.S.-brokered talks between Ukraine and Russia in
the United Arab Emirates, Kushner said that “if Europe could
identify one person to speak on their behalf, that would be a bigger
achievement than getting the Russians to include them in the
negotiation.”
That echoes the famous question often misattributed to former U.S.
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger: “Who do I call if I want to call
Europe?”
Potential candidates from within the EU
France, Germany and the U.K., the region’s top three economies
collectively known as the European trio or E3, have so far been the
most engaged European body in negotiations. But while London is
deeply involved with Ukraine, the U.K. left the EU in 2020.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Thursday that the E3 is “a
proven format” for diplomacy.
But an E3 envoy would leave out the other 25 EU nations and rankle
smaller nations like those that border Russia and Belarus on the
bloc’s “eastern flank,” which face constant hybrid threats,
including influence campaigns and disruptive drones.
Some back a top EU official for the job. Even inside Brussels,
however, there are two leading contenders: European Council
President Antonio Costa and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.
Costa's current role is to represent national leaders. A former
prime minister of Portugal, he spent much of the past year visiting
capitals across the bloc.
“European security cannot be discussed without a European voice at
the table,” Costa said in Dublin on Thursday. “That European voice
needs to be a team effort between European nations, the European
Union and NATO.”
But earlier this year, Costa faced criticism within the EU after his
office set up a hush-hush back-channel with Moscow.
Kallas, a former prime minister of Estonia, could also lay claim to
the envoy role.
She said in Dublin that the E3 represents the “big countries” but
then asked “who is representing the European Union?"
"Americans are representing American interests. Europeans are
representing European interests,” Kallas said, adding that the EU’s
foundational treaties are “very, very clear” that she and Costa were
appointed in 2024 to represent the bloc in “security matters.”
Kallas, however, has had a bumpy track record with U.S. diplomats as
Washington and Brussels sparred over trade and Ukraine. She's also
acknowledged tensions between her office, the EU's External Action
Service, and the European Commission.
Another name that has been floated is Stubb, the Finnish president.
He has warm relations with Trump and met in Oslo with U.S. envoys
Steve Witkoff and Kushner in October. A week after that, he called
Putin with Støre, the Norwegian prime minister. Stubb spoke with
Zelenskyy by phone on Tuesday.
But some leaders deeply distrust the U.S.-brokered talks. Polish
Prime Minister Donald Tusk was critical of the negotiations,
reflecting a regional pessimism among EU countries formerly
dominated by the Soviet Union.
“In my opinion, calling them negotiations is an exaggeration," Tusk
said Thursday. “We will not build a new security architecture simply
because the Russian president, or someone in the United States,
wishes it."
___
Associated Press writers Geir Moulson in Berlin and Colleen Barry in
Milan contributed to this report.
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