Brussels: Europe and the Arabs

European officials privately hoped they had won over Donald Trump after a series of high-level meetings aimed at persuading him to back down from the confrontation over Ukraine and the all-out trade war. But it wasn't long before the US president delivered a real shock, transatlantic rifts flared, and the White House once again appeared an unreliable ally. Will Brussels learn anything this time? This is how the website of Playbook Europe, the European edition of Politico, posed the question:

Presidents and prime ministers are continuing their talks on the sidelines of the EU-Africa summit in Angola today after Trump’s plan to end the war in Ukraine derailed the program. Kyiv’s allies, the “coalition of the willing,” will meet virtually to discuss the US proposals—which included significant concessions to Russia—before foreign ministers join an emergency video conference on Wednesday. US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is in Abu Dhabi for talks with the head of Ukrainian military intelligence and a Russian delegation, according to the Financial Times this morning.

Privately, European capitals have expressed optimism that they can persuade the Americans not to impose a bad peace agreement on Ukraine. “Things are going as they should,” a diplomat commented on the response to the leaked plan, which prompted urgent talks with US officials in Switzerland over the weekend. “There was a proposal that was never meant to be made public; We talked about it, and now it's being revised.” Trump appeared to have dropped the Thursday deadline for Kyiv to accept the proposal and expressed openness to revising it. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said late Monday that his negotiators had returned from Geneva talks with a streamlined framework that included “many of the right elements” from Kyiv’s perspective—though sensitive issues were still being discussed with Trump. White House spokeswoman Carolyn Leavitt said no meeting had taken place between the two leaders as of last night. But if the anxiety over Trump’s peace plan seems to have subsided, the controversy of the past week will only amplify broader calls for the European Union to change course and reduce its reliance on Washington for the continent’s defense. “We could have proposed our own plan with the Ukrainians,” Brando Benefe, a member of the European Parliament and head of the European Parliament’s delegation to the United States, told Playbook. “The EU today is still a very fragmented union of 27 different member states—we need to do more in terms of political unity or we will never be able to compete.” "On influence in today's world."

One source of sharp criticism is the fact that the European bloc has yet to agree to use frozen Russian funds to issue a €140 billion loan to ensure Kyiv doesn't run out of money next year. Belgium blocked the initiative at a summit in October, fearing legal repercussions. "If we had agreed to use Russian assets to finance Ukraine at the last European Council, this wouldn't have happened," a senior European official said. "If we want a seat at the table, we have to pay." Time is running out: "America, unfortunately, is not interested in European security," former Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabriel Landsbergis told Playbook. "This is not the beginning of the end, it is the end of the end." A European Council meeting is scheduled for December 18, and leaders should be prepared to leave having made serious decisions regarding frozen assets and sanctions. This morning, Playbook wrote that the EU's inaction has left Zelensky with a dire choice: either accept the offer concocted by Trump and Putin, or risk his country's future hoping for someday sufficient assistance from European allies who will not send him troops, the weapons he wants, or even seize Russia's frozen assets in their banks to help him purchase his own supplies. Trump's supporters are emboldened by this lack of action. Greg Swinson, chairman of Republicans Abroad UK, told Politico: "You can talk eloquently. You can attend all these diplomatic meetings and send your best to Geneva, but the only way to defeat Putin is to fight. And none of them are prepared to do that. So, it's all talk." It sounds great when we talk about democracy and defending Ukraine, but they simply aren't ready for it.

Kaia Callas, the EU's top diplomat, has been kept out of the spotlight due to her sometimes difficult relationship with the Trump administration. According to other officials, even US Secretary of State Marco Rubio—the most pro-European member of Trump's team, who shifted the course of Trump's Ukraine negotiations—refuses to hold bilateral meetings with Callas. But one official suggested she is busy playing the bad cop, rallying member states behind the scenes. Trade tensions: Meanwhile, the EU's hopes for smoother trade relations following the agreement reached with Washington this summer have faded. On Monday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick used his visit to Brussels to urge the EU to revise the digital rules binding on US companies and find a more "balanced" approach. He said that if it doesn't, talks on exempting steel and aluminum from burdensome tariffs could collapse.

In response, Teresa Ribera, the Commission's competition chief, said in a statement published by Politico: "The rules European digital work is non-negotiable. It is our duty to uphold our values ​​and defend our people.