Is the European Union Irrelevant in Ukraine Negotiations?

As President Trump's administration has continued to seek peace between Russia and Ukraine, European Union officials have been largely left out of the process, drawing media perspectives on the relevance of the bloc.

For Context: Trump's administration said it worked on a 28-point peace plan for three weeks, which it then pressured Ukraine to sign. The European Union then offered its own 28-point peace plan, though negotiations have remained centered around the American plan. After talks with Ukraine, the US and Ukraine agreed to mend certain points, and Ukraine has since preliminarily agreed to it. The administration has now said it seeks to meet with Russian officials in Moscow. On Tuesday, Bloomberg (Lean Left bias) leaked the transcript of an October 14 conversation between US envoy Steve Witkoff and a Russian official on negotiating an end to the conflict.

From the Left: An opinion from Lionel Laurent of Bloomberg criticized the large role the US is playing in the Ukraine negotiations. Laurent wrote that "despite Donald Trump's claims otherwise, Europe is Ukraine's chief financier," and that the EU, "whose gross domestic product is 10 times Russia's is able to do more than it has so far." An analysis from The Washington Post (Lean Left) highlighted political "frictions" within the EU and quoted a "European diplomat" who said, "The EU is a mostly soft power in a hard world, but we are trying." 

From the Right: In an opinion for The New York Post (Right), Rich Lowry (Right) described the EU as irrelevant and argued "Not only can the once-great European powers no longer dictate the fate of far-flung parts of the world, they can't even dictate the end of a war involving a European country whose fate they deem crucial to their own future."

European Perspective: Jacobin (Left) published an opinion by Bulgaria-based journalist Almut Rochowanski titled "Europe's Leaders Have No Strategy for Peace." Rochanowski said the EU was "caught off guard" by Trump's proposals and needs to do "a lot of thinking, debating, organizing, and work to escape the illogic of militarism… put a halt to escalation and find peace." Euronews (Center) covered a speech from EU President Ursula von der Leyen, who urged Europe to continue pressuring Russia and said, "Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. Nothing about Europe without Europe. Nothing about NATO without NATO." It also prominently highlighted an Estonian European Parliament member who said, "Americans believe everything Putin says."

Russian Perspective: RT (Lean Right) published opinions titled "Here's why nobody asked the EU when coming up with the Ukraine peace plan" and "The EU's Ukraine 'counter-plan' is a loser's manifesto." It also highlighted remarks from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who said, "No one listens" to the EU on Ukraine because its "elites" have insisted on using Ukraine as a "proxy" to "inflict a strategic defeat on Russia."

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