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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Friday that Europe must be included in negotiations to end the war in Ukraine to protect its interests and support Kyiv, as EU leaders gathered for an informal summit in Dublin.
“I think it is self-explanatory that Europe is included in the peace talks to safeguard our interests, but also to support Ukraine,” von der Leyen said ahead of the meeting.
She also welcomed the planned prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia.
Her comments came after U.S. envoys said Europe would participate in future negotiations, although the Kremlin said no decision had been made.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas urged European leaders to keep a ceasefire as the immediate priority and warned against allowing negotiations to shift toward Russia’s demands for changes to Europe’s wider security architecture.
“First we need a ceasefire,” Kallas said at the Dublin summit.
“If we start to talk about what Russia is asking regarding the security architecture, we actually walk into the traps that Russia is setting us,” she added.
Russia has pushed for negotiations on broader European security arrangements, including demands concerning NATO, while U.S. envoy Jared Kushner said European participation could allow negotiations to address wider postwar security arrangements.
Kallas said Russia should not determine who represents Europe in the talks.
“They don’t want anybody strong on the other side because they want to push through their maximum demands,” she said.
She also pointed to herself as a possible representative, saying: “I know that the Russians don’t want me, but you know, do we have a say on who is representing Russia? No, we don’t.”
EU leaders are also discussing how Europe should be represented in future negotiations.
Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said the issue should be settled soon.
“This needs to be resolved,” Martin said, adding that a decision should be made “within the next week or two.”
Officials from Britain, France and Germany, along with the EU, were present on the sidelines of negotiations in Abu Dhabi this week.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has supported maintaining a similar group rather than appointing a single representative, while others have argued that the EU’s senior officials should represent the bloc under existing treaties.
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Von der Leyen said the European Commission would present a proposal before the next EU leaders’ summit on financing Ukraine’s needs in 2027.
She also said the Commission would put forward a 22nd package of sanctions against Russia.
Separately, von der Leyen said leaders in Dublin would discuss the risks and opportunities of artificial intelligence, with particular attention to its use in European industry.
She said Europe’s strong manufacturing sector, expertise and sector-specific knowledge provide high-quality data that should be used to develop industrial AI in Europe, while leaders would also discuss risks such as AI developing beyond effective control.
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