European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Ukraine should reach a ceasefire before wider European security talks, arguing that starting with Russia’s demands could distract from efforts to stop the fighting.
Kallas spoke in Dublin on Friday before an informal meeting of EU leaders. Her preferred order is a ceasefire, a peace agreement and then discussion of other security issues, according to a transcript published by the European External Action Service (EEAS).
She warned that beginning with the wider security architecture could shift attention away from ending the fighting. “We actually walk into the traps that Russia is setting us,” Kallas said.
Kallas argued that Europe should help shape negotiations instead of joining only after terms are set. She said EU foreign ministers had prepared the bloc’s maximum demands in response to Moscow’s. Asked why Russia did not want her as a negotiator, Kallas said Moscow wanted to push its demands through. “They do not want anybody strong on the other side,” she said.
The question of who represents the EU is not new. Kallas said EU leaders agreed in June 2024 that she would represent the bloc on foreign and security policy, though leaders could revise that arrangement.
At a Nov. 6 news conference in Warsaw, Kallas said Russia had repeatedly breached treaties underpinning Europe’s security arrangements and that NATO posed no danger to Moscow in 2021 or then. She also said the EU would need a role in putting any agreement into effect, linking its place in negotiations to carrying out a settlement. EconoTimes previously covered Kallas’ call for European involvement in implementing a Ukraine agreement.
