Munich/Paris (Reuters)-France said on Sunday that it will host a summit of European leaders on Monday to discuss the war in Ukraine and European security, as the continent tries to give a concrete response to the unilateral approach of the US President, Donald Trump, to the conflict.
Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said on Saturday that Europe would not have a table for peace negotiations in Ukraine after Washington sent a questionnaire to the European capitals to ask what they could contribute to security guarantees from Kiev.
“(Macron) will summon the main European countries to discuss European security,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told France Radio Inter, adding that the meeting will be a work session that should not be “dramatized.”
Dozens of similar dome showed that Europe is hesitant, sometimes disunited and politically weak, and struggling to elaborate a cohesive plan to end the war in Ukraine and deal with Russia three years after Moscow’s invasion of his neighbor.
The French presidency did not announce the meeting, although invitations were sent for the summit to take place on Monday afternoon, diplomats said.
Six European diplomats said invitations were sent at least to the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, Italy, Denmark, which would represent the Baltic and Scandinavian countries, the leadership of the European Union and the OTAN secretary general.
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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will participate in the summit, German government sources told Reuters, as well as Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a Poland parliamentarian said.
They said the goal of the meeting is to see that immediate help can be given to Ukraine, what a concrete role Europe can play in providing Kiev safety guarantees and how to strengthen Europe’s collective security.
It was not clear if something concrete will result from this meeting, they said.
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(Report by John Irish, Sudip Kar-Gupta and Andreas Rinke; Additional report by Ludwig Burger)
