In a letter to European Council President António Costa, Giorgia Meloni says multiple negotiating formats are making Europe “less credible” to end the war.
Giorgia Meloni has rebuked the EU’s uncoordinated approach to peace negotiations with Russia, in a letter sent on Thursday to European Council President António Costa and seen by Euronews.
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The Italian prime minister criticized the fact that European leaders have recently launched several different initiatives without a shared direction or a clear mandate. The letter comes as officials from France, Germany and the United Kingdom, the so-called “E3”, meet representatives from the United States and Ukraine in Brussels to discuss how to end the war.
“Proceeding in disarray, with initiatives that chase and overlap one another, will not help us, either with our partners or with those we must convince to stop a senseless aggression. [...] All of this is making us less credible,” the letter reads.
Meloni is under pressure at home, where the opposition accuses her government of being irrelevant internationally and several political forces, including some in her own majority, are urging an end to military assistance to Ukraine.
In the letter, Meloni listed examples of this dynamic, including an informal meeting in Miami involving national security advisers from some European states, Ukraine, NATO and EU representatives, and a phone call between the leaders of Finland and Norway and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
She also criticised the proliferation of negotiating groups, such as the E3, the “Coalition of the Willing”, which brings together 37 EU and non-EU states, and the “Berlin format”, composed of Germany, France, Poland and representatives of NATO, the G7 and the EU.
Meloni asked for the issue to be discussed at the informal European Council in Dublin next week, with the aim of deciding how the EU should be represented in the peace talks. “Europe needs to speak with a single voice on the Ukrainian question. This need can no longer be postponed,” she wrote.
A crucial round of talks between Ukrainian and Russian negotiators, mediated by US officials, will take place in Abu Dhabi on 10 and 11 November, covering security arrangements and de-escalation.