Brussels – The last European summit of the year begins. Everything could be different at the next one, scheduled for March 2025. In EU-US.relations, in Washington’s commitment to the resistance by Kyiv to the Russian invasion, ultimately for Ukraine itself. Upon arriving in Brussels, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed to the Atlantic alliance: “Only united, the EU and the US can defeat Putin.”
The words that followed a dinner with the leaders of Italy, Germany, Poland, France, the Netherlands, and Denmark at the residence of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. It was a restricted meeting in which the head of the Atlantic Alliance asked European countries to put on the plate a tangible contribution to the peace to come because come January, with Donald Trump’s return to the White House, negotiations with Moscow could suddenly accelerate. However, once there is peace, the tycoon seems inclined to disengage from any ‘peace-keeping’ operation on the Ukrainian-Russian border, which may not be what it once was: Zelensky himself recently admitted that Ukraine could not retake Crimea and Donbas.
The European Union will be asked to assemble tens of thousands of troops as a peace-keeping force on what will be the border. However, as the talk of tomorrow and the preparations for a negotiation that seems to be approaching multiply, Zelensky brings the European allies back to the present, to the needs of the frontline and the civilian population. “The protection of our energy sector and nuclear and gas storage facilities,” the Ukrainian president pointed out. Also, “doubling, increasing as much as possible our domestic military production” and “air-raid shelters, food, a lot of different things, which are very important for our families.”
Standing next to him was European Council President António Costa, who reiterated the EU cornerstone on Ukraine: “Full support, in any way necessary, and for as long as necessary.” Adding, “Now at war and in the future at peace.” Peace is on everyone’s lips, but let it be “just and lasting,” Costa stressed. Even the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, in her introductory remarks to the table of EU heads of state and government, said that “we must intensify our efforts to move toward peace.” Not “some false version of peace peddled by Russia, but a true and lasting peace,” built around the guiding principle of “Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.”
The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas, upon her arrival at the European Council
The most skeptical seemed to be the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Estonian Kaja Kallas, who brought her colleagues back to earth. “We have to talk about how we can support Ukraine more. Zelensky’s meetings here are also about how we can provide more support,” she said as she entered the summit, seeking to curb leaps forward on peace talks that have not yet begun. “Any push for negotiations too soon will actually be a bad deal for Ukraine,” Kallas warned. A risk that Rutte already warned of, saying that excessive speculation about the parameters to be brought into play to end the war benefits Moscow.
However, it is far more complex to ask Trump to follow the orthodox line the EU has up until now outlined, which has prolonged the conflict almost into its third year but failed to pursue Kyiv’s military objectives. Luxembourg Prime Minister Luc Frieden, arriving in Brussels, said, “The future of Ukraine is decided in Europe and not elsewhere.” The reality is that it that elsewhere, they have already decided it, and this must be considered.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
