EU leaders start Friday’s summit still at odds over who should lead on Ukraine

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The question of who speaks for Europe has never been more consequential, but the EU doesn’t have an answer.

DUBLIN — EU leaders gathering in Dublin on Friday will continue arguing over who should represent them in talks about Ukraine’s future after a day of ferocious diplomatic activity.

As Donald Trump’s administration intensifies its efforts to broker an end to Russia’s war and Europe may have secured a place at the table, bickering over who will speak on behalf of the bloc already looks like overshadowing the summit in the Irish capital — that wasn’t even supposed to be about Ukraine in the first place.

“You could even have a TV show about it,” Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal joked to POLITICO in an interview on Thursday, in a sign of just how stark the divisions have become among leaders. “But we are saving the best part for tomorrow.”

Russia’s full-scale invasion started in February 2022 and as Trump’s enthusiasm for brokering peace has ebbed and flowed, the EU has found itself edged out of the picture ― despite increasingly picking up the tab.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who met with about 50 EU and non-EU leaders in Dublin on Thursday, warned that Russia was seeking to reshape Europe’s security architecture and insisted that European governments must have a voice in the negotiations, following two days of Russia-Ukraine-U.S. negotiations in Abu Dhabi that largely left out the EU.

Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, discussed the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier on Thursday before the American pair touched down in Dublin in the evening to offer Zelenskyy their thoughts.

The EU is united over the need to have a seat at the table as Ukraine’s main backer, but not on who it should send, with diplomats and officials telling POLITICO that the bloc has split into at least three camps.

In one, there is growing support for European Council President António Costa, whose role makes him the natural candidate to represent the bloc.

And then there’s the loneliest camp of all, the backers of Kaja Kallas.

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