EU dispute over aid to Ukraine: angry letters, sensitivities and arguments about money

Sometimes just a single letter is enough to shake up the European Union's agenda. But this time, EU Council President António Costa has received two explosive letters - one from Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the second from Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

What Meloni and Merz are demanding could trigger a serious crisis. The Italian and the German are raising two delicate questions to which the EU has not yet found an answer: Who speaks for Europe in Ukraine and Russia policy? And how can Ukraine be financed in the long term?

Costa wanted to answer the first question – about a negotiator for the peace talks that have now started again in Abu Dhabi – in June. But at the EU summit, Merz was reluctant to send a representative to Moscow. The EU was unable to agree on a common approach. This led to a diplomatic embarrassment at negotiations in Abu Dhabi this week. The EU was not represented by one official envoy, as Meloni demands, but by five: a representative each from the EU Commission and Council as well as diplomats from Germany, France and Italy.

After two days of negotiations in Abu Dhabi, the results are unsurprisingly poor; expectations for the meeting were low anyway. At least US negotiator and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner was able to report a large-scale prisoner exchange. It is certainly not the first time that prisoners have been released since the war began in February 2022, but this time it is said to be a special deal. Details are not yet known. In any case, there should be further discussions.

And right on Thursday. Kushner and US special envoy Steve Witkoff want to travel to Moscow. The goal should be a direct conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. On the one hand, this action gives hope, but on the other hand it also makes it unmistakably clear that the Russian delegation sent to Abu Dhabi had no real mandate. All decisions and the progress of the talks go through the ruler Putin.

The head of the Ukrainian delegation, Rustem Umerov, still sees considerable differences between the positions of Russia and Ukraine. “There is still a lot of difficult work ahead of us,” Umerow wrote on Telegram. Hope is being raised ever so slightly that there might be a solution by the end of the year. If one follows statements from the Russian side, it seems that an end to the war and a withdrawal from the occupied territories in Ukraine is still a long way off.

While the evaluation of the talks is still ongoing and Kushner and Witkoff are preparing for their visit to Moscow, the Russian side is making it clear once again that there will be no talks with the Europeans. Once again, the Russian side insisted on its narrative: there was no peace offer or peace initiative from the Europeans. After all, after their meeting with Putin, Witkoff and Kushner want to travel on to Dublin, where heads of state and government from Europe will meet in the next two days.

In Abu Dhabi, the Europeans did not sit at the negotiating table with Russia, Ukraine and the USA, but had to be content with the tidbits that Washington and Kyiv passed on to them after the talks. It was also strange that the EU foreign affairs representative, Kaja Kallas, who was actually responsible, played no role at all.

It's not that crazy, at least Europe was there, that's what the EU diplomats in Brussels say. But Meloni won't be satisfied with that. After all, 24 EU countries were not represented in Abu Dhabi - and it is also unclear what mandate the five Europeans who arrived quite spontaneously had. At a meeting of the “European Political Community” on Thursday in the Irish capital Dublin, there is now a risk of a dispute about how to proceed. The Europeans actually wanted to talk to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney about innovation and defense and celebrate their unity.

Even more trouble threatens at an informal EU summit, also taking place in Dublin on Friday. Originally it was supposed to be about artificial intelligence and the Europeans catching up on this topic. But now we will also talk about the long-term financing of Ukraine, as Merz demanded. In his letter, the Chancellor asked summit leader Costa to put aid to Ukraine as a “priority item” on the agenda. The participation of all EU countries is an “essential prerequisite” for resolving issues with “financial implications” – an allusion to the negotiations over the next EU budget.

But if Merz had hoped that he could shake up the EU with this combination, he was wrong. Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic immediately expressed resistance. These four countries had already opted out at the beginning of the year - they are not supporting the 90 billion euro EU loan for Kyiv. The Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico even accused Merz of attempted “blackmail” to which he would not submit. The new Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar rejected the move during a visit to the Federal Chancellery in front of cameras - in the presence of Merz. Now there is a threat of a showdown in Dublin.

It is no longer just about the 70 billion euros that Ukraine will be missing in 2027, as President Volodymyr Zelensky has admitted. It is also about long-term aid that is intended to save the war-torn country from bankruptcy. The EU also has to agree on a new common budget for 2028 to 2034 - up to 2 trillion euros is under discussion.

Originally, the extremely difficult budget debate was supposed to take place at another special summit in Brussels at the end of November. Council President Costa wanted to neatly separate aid for Ukraine and the EU budget. Merz thwarted this calculation - and possibly made a solution even more difficult.