update:.
—. The European Union was unable to reach an agreement on a single candidate for chief negotiator on the Ukraine issue and decided to send them all.
Therefore, Europe will be represented in the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine by:.
- President of the European Council, Antonio Costa;
- The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the European Union, Kaja Kalla;.
- National security advisors from Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Poland.
The result is a compromise that preserves national representation and not the concentration of negotiating powers in one person. It also reveals divisions within the EU on this issue.
An important question is whether the EU representatives will have a common mandate for negotiations or whether they will only participate as separate national and institutional delegations.
It remains unresolved.
Another unresolved issue is whether they will be allowed to participate in the negotiations from the beginning or, as was the case in the recent talks in Abu Dhabi, to participate as outside observers. Some commentators see this as an attempt by the EU to push themselves into negotiations because they feel Trump will not mind pushing them away.
Peskov stated that the European Union must first decide definitively whether it wants to negotiate or start a war with Russia. Otherwise their presence will be pointless.