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They came to discuss AI, but EU leaders spent most of their time during a summit in Dublin on Friday grappling with questions about Ukraine — namely who should represent them in future peace talks. Despite plenty of disagreement about whether it should be a single person (and if so, who) or a collection of them, they managed to strike a deal: Future talks would involve national security officials from Germany, France, the U.K., Italy and Poland — the so-called E5 powers — plus representatives from the European Commission and European Council. A classic European compromise. “It is essential to have a team and to speak with one voice,” European Council President António Costa said after the summit, noting that Donald Trump had also tasked two envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, with conducting negotiations. Ireland, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency and hosted the informal gathering, had billed the meeting as a rare chance for a high-level discussion on how to develop artificial intelligence in accordance with European values. But the question of how to secure peace in Ukraine — and who should negotiate on Europe’s behalf — quickly dominated discussions, as leaders sparred over the format of future peace negotiations and warned about the risks of a potential deal brokered between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Indeed, a meeting next week between the U.S. and Russian leaders has set Europe on edge, prompting warnings about a possible Yalta-type agreement in which superpowers would decide on European security questions over the heads of countries directly concerned, reminiscent of talks toward the end of World War II that divided Europe up between the four allied powers. UAE’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, members of the Ukrainian and Russian delegations hold talks mediated by U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff Jared Kushner in Abu Dhabi on November 10, 2026. | Pool photo by Altaf Qadri/AFP via Getty Images “That is why I want to make our message to the U.S. very clear: Please, no surprises!” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said regarding the Trump-Putin meeting, scheduled to take place during an APEC summit in Shenzhen, China, on Nov. 18-19. “Continue to play on Team Europe and on the same team as Ukraine. And let’s work together for genuine peace in Ukraine.” The question of who should represent Europe in future discussions about Ukraine and the post-conflict security order was added to the summit’s agenda at the last minute, following a request from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Earlier in the day, Merz had voiced preference for a narrower group made up of officials from Berlin, Paris and London, while Kaja Kallas, the EU’s chief diplomat, argued that she was best placed to lead discussions. “I know that the Russians don’t want me, but do we have a say on who is representing Russia? No, we don’t,” said Kallas. “We have a really strong team,” she went on. “I’m ready to do this work with foreign ministers.” AI jockeys with Russia fears It wasn’t all about Ukraine. Over a lunch of baked salmon fillets and crushed Ballymackenny potatoes, EU leaders grappled with the question of how to make AI more “sovereign” — that is, less dependent on U.S. and Chinese technology providers.  “Our independence cannot be outsourced, it must be built here at home,” Macron wrote in a post on X in which he also announced that France and the Netherlands would host a meeting of “Tech Creators” on Dec. 2.  Amid a global outage of Microsoft software (since resolved), Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch urged leaders to direct some €260 billion currently spent on foreign technology toward home-grown tech infrastructure, research and development. While the bloc has solid foundations on which to build AI solutions, Europe needs “speed, financing and a strong coordination between member states,” said Mensch. But the AI discussion quickly ceded ground to existential questions about Ukraine, including how the bloc would finance Kyiv in coming months and whether Europe would get a seat at the table in upcoming rounds of Ukraine-Russia talks brokered by the U.S. Just as leaders including Ukraine’s president were gathering in Dublin, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was open to Europeans joining the talks, reversing Moscow’s previous opposition. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov quickly followed up with qualifications, however, stating that Europeans must first demonstrate “genuine intention and readiness to contribute to the peace process” before being admitted — a condition that Kallas quickly dismissed as a “trap.” “If we start to talk about what Russia is asking regarding the security architecture, we actually walk into the traps that Russia is setting us, which is that we divert attention away from that there is no ceasefire,” she told reporters in Dublin. Other officials said that Russia’s preconditions for allowing Europe to join the talks would mean concessions to Moscow’s war demands, namely a withdrawal of NATO from European states bordering Russia, the lifting of sanctions and a ban on foreign troops in Ukraine. Giorgio Leali, Pieter Haeck, Sebastian Starcevic, Caroline Hug and Shawn Pogatchnik contributed to this article from Dublin.

LONDON — Some European leaders wanted a superhero negotiator to take on Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, secure a fair peace deal for Ukraine, and safeguard the continent’s own security, as ceasefire talks gather pace.  They were never going to find one.  That had already become the view of diplomats and officials close to the discussions, granted anonymity to comment on the sensitive Ukraine peace process that’s dividing opinion in European capitals, even before the EU decided on Friday that it would have to be a team effort.  The push to identify one representative to speak for Europe was understandable. The appeal of having a single, respected leader taking the reins is largely based on a desire to project European strength and unity — as well as an interest in making negotiations with Russia, the U.S. and Ukraine efficient and effective.  Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself said this week he wanted Europe to identify within days who will take its place in the talks, and suggested he’d prefer it was one person (he even indicated that he had a preference, though would not reveal a name).He didn’t get his way. Instead, leaders at a summit in Dublin on Friday, decided that the “E5” made up four big EU countries ― Germany, France, Poland and Italy ― and the U.K., plus officials from the European Commission and Council, would take the work forward as a team. Technical discussions The search for a top representative to fill Europe’s seat at the negotiating table at the next round of peace talks had become a political obsession in Brussels that missed at least two big points.  Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy takes part in a press conference at Government Buildings in Dublin on November 11, 2026. | Paul Faith/AFP via Getty Images The first is that the leadership level is not currently where the negotiations are at. Talks this week in Abu Dhabi were technical discussions between senior officials. The big political players like Putin and Zelenskyy were not there, never mind Trump. Russia sent a Kremlin aide to lead its team and Ukraine tasked its intelligence chief with making its case.  If these officials make progress toward a deal, leaders will no doubt want to get involved. Ultimately, it will be leaders who sign any peace agreements that follow — and there’s no limit on the number of EU presidents or prime ministers who could join such a meeting as signatories or guarantors of the final deal.  The next thing that needs to happen, according to both Ukraine and the U.S. envoys mediating the talks, is for Europe to join the discussion with Russia — at this technical level.  ‘Not a superstate’  The second point some member states and Brussels insiders were missing is structural: There are just too many European stakeholders with equally important but very distinct interests and remits, making consolidation of all the different strands under one person impossible.  The Commission can’t negotiate Europe’s future security architecture — that’s for NATO members and national capitals to decide. But equally NATO, Paris and Berlin cannot negotiate EU sanctions or Ukraine’s accession to the bloc — these are in the Commission’s remit.  France’s President Emmanuel Macron talks with Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz on the sidelines of the ninth meeting of the European Political Community, in Dublin on November 12, 2026. | Thomas Samson/AFP via Getty Images And the idea that the “E3” — Europe’s big economic and military beasts of Germany, France and the U.K. — would let either the Commission, the European Council or NATO do it all on their behalf is not realistic.  As one EU diplomat put it: “The reason why Europe hasn’t found one person who can represent the whole of Europe is that Europe is not a superstate.”  In the context of the Ukraine talks, European interests encompass many EU member states but also countries like the U.K., and Norway, as well as Turkey and Moldova, the diplomat said. “Who can promise troops on the ground on behalf of the rest of Europe? Who can offer billions in financing? It’s difficult.”  The conclusion some officials involved in the Abu Dhabi process reached was that Europe would have to be represented by a team, much as it has been already, albeit at one step removed from the main negotiating room so far. Different members of that team will own different issues.  What Putin wants Then there’s the question of content: What will be discussed and what will Team Europe’s collective position be?  “What we actually say is more important than the exact configuration of the people in the room,” Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on his way into Friday’s meeting of EU leaders. The reason why American and Ukrainian officials want Europe’s participation is because they believe beginning a discussion about reshaping the continent’s security structures could unlock a more cooperative approach from Russia.  EU High Representative and Vice-President for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas attends a family photo following an informal meeting of EU leaders at Dublin Convention Centre on November 13, 2026 in Dublin. | Charles McQuillan/Getty Images Russia’s top negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said Europe’s security framework was the main topic discussed in Abu Dhabi this week: “The conflict in Ukraine showed that the entire security system operating after Yalta and Potsdam is working poorly, and an abscess broke through in Ukraine,” he said.  Ukraine’s team noted that the hardline Russian approach softened a little when Moscow’s representatives saw the chance to talk about their wider demands on European security. But Europe itself wasn’t part of that conversation. Timing is still everything The first thing to resolve will be on the sequencing of the negotiations — most significantly, when should Europeans allow themselves to discuss Russia’s demand to overhaul regional security? This is a critical and potentially existential question for European countries. And it is already a subject on which top EU officials are weighing their positions with care.  Those close to the talks believe a clever way can be found to offer Russia a conversation about regional security as part of careful sequencing of the negotiations, without binding the issue completely into the final peace agreement for Ukraine.  But different EU spokespeople are saying different things on this sequencing point, in what is either a clever strategy, or a sign of continuing disarray. Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top centrally contracted diplomat, said there must be no discussion of wider European security architecture — such as NATO configurations, troop deployments and working forums for consultations with Russia — until after the peace deal is finalized.  But in Abu Dhabi, EU officials signaled their readiness to allow parallel tracks in the talks,  so Ukraine’s peace settlement and Europe’s future security structures could be discussed at the same time.  Officials in national capitals also agree that the “sequencing” of the negotiations on this point is key. Behind the scenes different countries and factions have different views on what the right strategy should be, just as they struggle with the question of whether it’s right to engage directly with Putin at all.  And of course the question of Europe’s role may yet be moot. The U.S. envoys said on Thursday night that Putin had consented to letting Europe join the talks, but the Kremlin called this into question on Friday.  After the negotiations in Abu Dhabi concluded this week, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior envoy, acknowledged the twin problems he faces. “If Europe could identify one person to speak on their behalf, that would be a bigger achievement than getting the Russians to include them in the negotiation,” he said.

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Anti-corruption agency carried out searches as part of investigation into Orbán-era minister accused of taking bribesHungary’s anti-corruption agency said on Friday it had seized cash worth $19.5m (£14.8m) buried in forests and hidden elsewhere while investigating an ex-minister of nationalist former leader Viktor Orbán’s cabinet.Miklós Seszták, Hungary’s minister of national development between 2014 and 2018, is accused of taking bribes in a scheme involving the state transport company, purchasing secondhand buses at inflated prices. Continue reading...

Kaja Kallas says Moscow is trying to divert attention from its aggression by raising issue of European securityThe EU’s foreign policy chief has warned against “walking into the traps that Russia is setting” as she said Moscow was trying to start a debate about European security in order to divert attention from its aggression.“We have one aggressor and one victim, and the aggressor does not have security concerns,” Kaja Kallas said on arrival at an EU leaders’ summit in Dublin. “Nobody has ever attacked them. They have attacked others. I mean, keep the focus, people.” Continue reading...

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