European Commission not commenting on readiness of some EU leaders for direct talks with Putin
The European Commission declined comment on the readiness of some European Union leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, to hold direct talks with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, stating that the appropriate conditions for such contacts – namely negotiations to achieve peace for Ukraine – have not yet been created for the European Commission.
This was stated on Friday in Brussels by European Commission spokeswoman Paula Pinho, noting that the President of the European Commission met on Thursday in Paris with Macron, who this week sent his diplomatic adviser on a discreet trip to Moscow for direct talks with the Kremlin.
According to her, this topic was not discussed yesterday at the meeting between President von der Leyen and President Macron, but "contacts with a representative of the French government regarding this visit have been made."
"As I had the opportunity to say some time ago, at some point we will have to contact President Putin. And we would like this to happen sooner rather than later, if the conditions are met. But the problem is that we see practically no signals of readiness to reach an agreement, to achieve peace in Ukraine. So this must be taken into account when we talk about direct negotiations with President Putin," the spokesperson said, explaining the position of the European Commission.
Responding to a clarifying question whether the president supports the fact that France is "somehow resuming cooperation with the Kremlin," despite the fact that the appropriate conditions for negotiations have not been created, Pignault stated that "there is no common position" among the member states.
"We really see a change in the position of some member states, and we see that several member states are opening up to this possibility. So let’s see where we are and see if this is really becoming a common occurrence and if there is a majority of leaders in the EU who will defend this approach. So we can’t say more at the moment, but we really see a change in the attitude (on the issue of negotiations with Putin - IF-U) of some leaders," said Pinho.
Speaking about the issue of new sanctions against Russia, the European Commission spokeswoman stressed that Brussels sees them "as one of the means to put pressure on Russia to come to the negotiating table, as a means to create conditions for achieving peace in Ukraine." "That’s why we are working very actively on the 20th package of sanctions. We said that it should be ready in the near future. So we’ll see when exactly all the conditions for adoption (of the 20th package of sanctions - IF-U) will be met. But I can confirm that a lot of work has been going on in recent days on this 20th package of sanctions. So I think we can expect it quite soon," she said.
