EU sends joint team to Abu Dhabi talks as Meloni seeks envoy

The European Commission and the European Council will send a joint team of senior officials to the U.S.-hosted Ukraine-Russia talks in Abu Dhabi on Nov. 10 and 11, Euronews reported.

The two-day round resumes trilateral negotiations that stalled in February, and Europe has so far watched from outside: Europeans did not formally take part in the January and February rounds in Abu Dhabi, according to Euromaidan Press.

The EU team is led by Bjoern Seibert, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s chief of cabinet, and Anna-Maria Boura, chief foreign policy adviser to European Council President António Costa, Euronews reported. France, Germany and the U.K. will also be present, Euronews said.

Ukraine’s chief negotiator, Rustem Umerov, said representatives of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, NATO and the European Commission will be in Abu Dhabi on the same days and that Ukraine will hold separate coordination meetings with them, Euromaidan Press reported.

“The EU will be present alongside our partners,” von der Leyen said Monday after speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. She said “freedom of navigation in the Black Sea must be restored and preserved” and that she supports his call for a ceasefire covering food and energy infrastructure.

The talks bring together Ukrainian negotiators including Umerov, Davyd Arakhamia and officials from the president’s office; a Russian delegation headed by Putin aide Vladimir Medinsky with Deputy Foreign Ministers Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin; and U.S. special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, according to Euronews.

The Kremlin describes the format differently. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that the talks are “trilateral talks between Russia and Ukraine mediated by the United States,” Euromaidan Press reported. A day earlier he said Russia had held no talks with Europeans on a security agreement. Those are Moscow’s claims and have not been independently verified.

Whether EU officials will meet the Russian delegation directly is unclear, Euronews said. Both institutions have signalled they are willing, which would be a first in these talks.

Divisions among Europeans are also showing. Euronews reported that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni sent a letter to Costa complaining of “disarray” in Europe’s diplomatic formats and asking for a special European envoy, and that Costa agreed to raise the issue at an informal summit in Dublin that follows the Abu Dhabi meeting. We have not seen the letter, and the account rests on Euronews. Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski backed the call, saying: “The last thing we want is Western Europe dealing with Russia, over the heads of the East Europeans.”

U.S. President Donald Trump added to the uncertainty in a “60 Minutes” interview, saying Ukraine would “end up with a little bit different shape” without saying what he meant, Euronews reported. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday that “nothing’s been finalized yet” on postwar security guarantees, according to Euromaidan Press. Zelenskyy has called a Kushner post on reshaping Europe’s post-war security architecture “dangerous,” Euronews said.

For Canada, the question of who speaks for Europe matters because Ottawa has just tied itself closer to Brussels. Prime Minister Mark Carney and von der Leyen opened the 21st EU-Canada summit in Montreal on Oct. 29 to launch an “Alliance for the Future” that covers defence and security, as we reported. Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand is also in Paris on Nov. 9 and 10 for a G7 foreign ministers’ meeting where Ukraine is on the agenda, our earlier report said, so any European position agreed on the sidelines in Abu Dhabi is likely to reach Canadian ministers within days. Canada is also home to one of the world’s largest Ukrainian diaspora communities.

The talks follow our earlier coverage of the EU’s rejection of a U.S.-Russia security arrangement made without Europe. The Dublin summit is next; no date was given in the reports we reviewed.

Via Euronews and Euromaidan Press.

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