On the night between Thursday and Friday, in the frantic hours that saw the EU reach an agreement on joint debt to support Ukraine, Emmanuel Macron explained that, should American mediation in Florida fail, it would be up to the Europeans to talk to the Kremlin. That passage from his press conference, greeted with some distraction in Europe, instead struck a chord in Moscow. "Putin is ready for dialogue," announced Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. And in just a few hours, the landscape of negotiations on Ukraine for the coming weeks has changed.
"Macron said he was ready to talk to Putin. It's probably very important to remember what the president said during his annual press conference last Friday: he expressed his willingness to talk with Macron," Peskov explained, just as the possibility of a three-way meeting between the US, Russia, and Ukraine in Miami was fading. Peskov's comments were followed by those of the Elysée, according to which "now that the prospect of a ceasefire and peace negotiations is becoming clearer, it is useful to talk to Putin again."
Paris has not provided a timeline or a set schedule for the prospective dialogue with the Russian president, but has stated that the terms of the meeting will be arranged "in the coming days." In theory, therefore, it's possible for the meeting to take place in person. And, for the European strategy on the Ukrainian front, this change would be groundbreaking. The reasons for Macron's shift, for now, can only be speculated. The French president's move certainly reflects the EU's desire—and the Coalition of the Willing's—to have a front-row seat in the negotiations, given the belief that Ukraine's security concerns the entire continent. But Macron's choice may also be based on intra-European dynamics. Faced with Friedrich Merz's activism since he took over as German president, France has seemed somewhat on the sidelines in recent months, also weakened by domestic political instability. The Financial Times, reviewing Thursday's European Council, emphasized France's decisive role in the black smoke that emerged over the use of Russian assets.
"Macron betrayed Merz," a senior diplomat present in the Europa Building explained to the British newspaper. A hypothetical meeting with Putin would therefore bring Paris back to the center of European diplomacy, to Berlin's detriment. Then there's the Donald Trump factor, which may have influenced the Elysée Palace's decisions. Brussels's total refusal to engage with the Kremlin risks overshadowing EU countries' interests in Ukraine, just as Trump is constantly attacking Brussels. A strategically and militarily autonomous Europe—a long-standing Macron obsession—must confront even the most dire of adversaries head-on. Macron's move, for now, has been met with silence not only from the EU Commission, but also from other European leaders. The Elysée Palace has explained that it will "act transparently," but the risk that any talks between Paris and Moscow could divide Europe is high. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part, has never viewed such attempts in a negative light. Whether all this will bring peace closer remains to be seen. Macron himself, last July, had a telephone conversation with Putin, the first in three years. The results of that conversation, on the war front in Ukraine, were nil.
(Unioneonline)