LUXEMBOURG – As they arrived at a key meeting in Luxembourg on Monday, EU foreign ministers were in opposite camps about upcoming negotiations in Budapest between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump on Ukraine.
US President Trump and his Russian counterpart Putin agreed last week to hold a round of talks in the Hungarian capital, though a date has not yet been confirmed.
A more hawkish group of eastern and Baltic ministers – led by EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas – strongly rejected the prospect of Russia and the United States deciding the future of Ukraine, under the watchful gaze of Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
“My wish would have been that it’s President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy who meets Putin because it’s actually them who have to agree on this,” Kallas said on arrival.
Meanwhile, Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen told journalists that nobody can make decisions “over the head of Europe” about matters that affect Europe.
But tough rhetoric aside, there was also a caucus of countries that have already accepted the inevitability of the Budapest summit and are now focused on pressing for results.
“It’s good that such a meeting is happening,” said Germany’s Europe Minister Gunther Krichbaum, while cautioning about the risks of leaving Ukraine out of any agreement.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said it was “useful” for the Americans to be able to talk to the Russians. “But this presence of Vladimir Putin on European Union soil only makes sense if it allows for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire,” he said.
Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister David van Weel suggested that some European leaders have mixed feelings about where the meeting will take place. “On the other hand, the most important thing is that we have a negotiating table, that we get the parties around the table,” Weel said. “Up until now, that hasn’t happened, and it’s very, very needed.”
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Asked by Euractiv whether Hungary was setting the EU’s agenda, Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said that Budapest is “just a venue for a meeting.”
“It is not organised by Hungary or any European countries, it’s a decision taken by the American president,” Løkke said, adding that there is “nothing I can do about it apart from stressing that we stand with Ukraine”.
“We support the American president’s proposal of a ceasefire at the contact line, nothing more than that, that would be an important step forward,” the Danish leader said. Løkke also downplayed a Financial Times report that Trump had put pressure on him to accept Russia’s demands for ending the war.
The Netherlands’ van Weel also said that he believes Ukrainians are less negative than one would presume based on the report. “I think they are fully convinced that President Trump wants to end the war on fair terms,” he said.
While Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys told reporters that the only place for Putin in Europe should be in The Hague, his Hungarian counterpart Péter Szijjártó strode past him, tailed by two personal cameramen.
“I cannot imagine [Putin] crossing our airspace,” said Budrys. But he conceded that the Russian president would have alternative routes to get to Budapest.
Thomas Møller-Nielsen, Magnus Lund Nielsen, and Jeremias Lin contributed reporting from Brussels.
(cm, vib)
