Ukraine: Meloni writes to Costa: ‘It is unacceptable for the EU to be in disarray; we need a single voice’

A Europe that continues to ‘proceed in a disorganised manner’ on Ukraine is ‘unacceptable’: ‘We are simply serving the interests of those who want this war to continue’. Giorgia Meloni has lost her patience. After months of calling for a single negotiator for Kyiv – someone capable of sitting at the negotiating table with a unified voice and a clear mandate to represent the EU – the Italian Prime Minister has put pen to paper and written to the President of the European Council, Antonio Costa.

The call is clear: put an end to ‘initiatives that follow one another in quick succession and overlap’, because ‘it will not help us, neither with our partners nor with those we need to convince to stop a senseless aggression’ (Vladimir Putin, whom he does not name). And to address the issue at the informal European Council meeting in Dublin scheduled for 13 November, with a view to reaching a final decision at the summit of Heads of State and Government in December.

This is the Prime Minister’s first move in the wake of Donald Trump’s defeat in the mid-term elections and a series of ‘impromptu’ initiatives that Meloni has been rolling out over the past month alone. ‘In Miami, an “informal” meeting between the national security advisers of several European states, Ukraine, and representatives from NATO and the EU was only confirmed later by US sources,’ she notes. “Then we met in Oslo. A few days later, in Helsinki, during the Nordic Council session, President Stubb and Prime Minister Støre suspended proceedings for a ‘national’ telephone call with Russian President Putin.”

That’s not all. Following the Helsinki meeting, ‘a meeting of the Coalition of the Willing, comprising 37 states, was convened for 19 November in Berlin. However, a week earlier, on 12 November, on the sidelines of the European Political Community meeting, we were invited to a meeting of the so-called ‘Berlin format’, which has a composition that differs yet again from all the others I have mentioned’: this refers to the E5, which brings together the leaders of Germany, Italia, France, Poland and the United Kingdom. As if that were not enough, he adds, ‘I understand that technical-level meetings are taking place in Brussels at the moment, and that an unspecified European presence is expected at the talks scheduled to take place in Abu Dhabi between the Ukrainians and the Russians, with American mediation. And, in the meantime, we shall have met at the informal European Council in Dublin’.

At next week’s Irish summit, the Prime Minister is calling for the inclusion of a decisive debate, one capable of enabling the 27 European Heads of State and Government to reach a final decision at the December European Council, following consultation with the United Kingdom, Norway and the other European partners concerned. Otherwise, ‘I fear we risk condemning Europe to irrelevance in the negotiation process’. Because the chaos of differing formats ‘is undermining our credibility in handling one of the most complicated issues facing our nations’. And a Europe in disarray is unacceptable, “given that human lives and the future of our security are at stake”.