{"id":427032,"date":"2025-05-16T18:53:40","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T16:53:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/05\/16\/cpe-tirana-istanbul-ucraina-zelensky\/"},"modified":"2025-05-16T19:33:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-16T17:33:08","slug":"european-leaders-convene-in-tirana-but-think-of-istanbul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/05\/16\/european-leaders-convene-in-tirana-but-think-of-istanbul\/","title":{"rendered":"European leaders convene in Tirana, but think of Istanbul"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – “The New Europe in a new world<\/strong>.” It was under this motto that the sixth summit of the European Political Community (EPC)<\/strong>, the informal forum that brings together leaders from 47 countries of geographic Europe, was held today in Tirana. Co-chaired by Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama<\/strong> and the President of the European Council, Ant\u00f3nio Costa<\/strong>, the meeting focused on security, competitiveness, and immigration<\/strong>.\u00a0Also among the hottest topics was the Ukraine war, with\u00a0<\/span>Volodymyr Zelensky<\/strong>\u00a0criticising the busted flush of the<\/span>\u00a0Istanbul talks<\/strong>\u00a0and the EU leadership promising\u00a0<\/span>new sanctions against Moscow<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The “big names” of the Old Continent met today (May 16) in Tirana<\/a>: the leaders of the Twenty-Seven<\/strong> and those of almost all non-EU countries<\/strong> (with the exception of Russia and Belarus), the EU top brass,<\/strong>\u00a0and the leaders\u00a0of multilateral organisations such as NATO<\/strong> and the\u00a0Council of Europe<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The meeting was co-chaired by the host, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama<\/strong> fresh from re-election (his fourth in a row, though with some shadows<\/a>), and Ant\u00f3nio Costa<\/strong>, the president of the European Council who has just concluded a three-day tour of the Western Balkans<\/strong> to emphasise<\/a> Brussels’ commitment to the enlargement dossier<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Edi<\/a>
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama (left) and European Council President Ant\u00f3nio Costa (photo: European Council)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But all eyes (or almost) were on Volodymyr Zelensky<\/strong>, who, from the Tirana summit, commented on the rather disappointing outcome of the first direct talks between the Moscow and Kyiv delegations since March 2022<\/strong>, held in the morning in Istanbul<\/a> in the presence of Turkish and U.S. mediators.<\/p>\n

As most observers had expected, the meeting (which lasted less than two hours)\u00a0<\/span>did not result in any agreement on a ceasefire<\/strong>,<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong>which at the moment remains a pipe dream, but did give the green light to the\u00a0<\/span>exchange of 1,000 prisoners per side<\/strong>.<\/span>\u00a0The negotiating teams reportedly discussed, on a preliminary basis, some proposals for a truce<\/strong> and, it seems, also the possibility of a top-level meeting<\/strong> between Zelensky and Vladimir Putin<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian president had an exchange on the issue with his French counterpart,\u00a0Emmanuel Macron<\/strong>, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz<\/strong>, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer,<\/strong> and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk<\/strong>. The five spoke briefly on the phone with Donald Trump<\/strong> (who announced that he would like to see his Russian counterpart as soon as possible) to reiterate that “pressure on Russia must be maintained<\/strong> until Russia is ready to end the war.” However, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni<\/strong>, who seems to have had enough of the staged moments\u00a0with Rama, was absent from the restricted meeting.<\/p>\n

\n

Spoke with @POTUS<\/a> together with President Macron, Federal Chancellor Merz, Prime Ministers Starmer and Tusk. We discussed the meeting in Istanbul.<\/p>\n

Ukraine is ready to take the fastest possible steps to bring real peace, and it is important that the world holds a strong stance.\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/CG3pAnN5Ip<\/a><\/p>\n

– Volodymyr Zelenskyy (@ZelenskyyUa) May 16, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In response to Moscow’s unwillingness to sit down at the negotiating table, Ursula von der Leyen<\/strong> and Kaja Kallas<\/strong> announced from the EPC frame that Brussels will get to work to package a new round of sanctions<\/strong> against the Kremlin, a few days later<\/a> from the approval (at the level of member state ambassadors) of the 17th package of restrictive measures<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The head of the EU executive stressed that “sanctions on Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2<\/strong>” (the gas pipelines linking Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea), among other things, will be included, while the High Representative repeated that Putin’s absence in Istanbul shows that the czar “is not serious”<\/strong> about the negotiation process. Opinion also shared by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte<\/strong>, for whom it was “a mistake” on the part of the Federation to send a low-level delegation<\/strong> to the Bosporus.<\/p>\n

\"Ursula<\/a>
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (photo: Aurore Martignoni\/European Commission)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After the first plenary session<\/strong> (and an opening ceremony in which AI-generated “childlike” versions of the leaders present at the summit were projected on a giant screen), the heads of state and governments sat around three thematic round tables<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The first dealt with security<\/strong> (including the Ukrainian dossier) and democratic resilience; the second with economic competitiveness<\/strong>; and the third with migration, mobility, and youth<\/strong>.\u00a0At the end of the proceedings, a second plenary session was held to set the date for the next EPC\u00a0summit<\/strong>, scheduled for autumn in Denmark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the Albanian summit of the European Political Community, talks about the continent’s future in security, economy, and migration. Focus on war in Ukraine: while no breakthrough in negotiations came out of talks in Turkey, EU announces new sanctions on Russia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":427025,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[26042,27175,26327,25747,26891,29612],"class_list":["post-427032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-edi-rama-en","tag-community-politics-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427032"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":427041,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427032\/revisions\/427041"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}