U.S., Russia Outline Ukraine Peace Talks

EU can't let go of the war mindset

Feb 18, 2025

∙ Paid

Saudis host first successful day of talks; U.S. opens door to EU involvement
Brussels still claims Russian invasion imminent, leaving no room for dissent
A 'with us or against us' mantra suffuses Britain and most of the continent
EU frames decision making, through language & narrative as pursuit of virtue
Yet if U.S. no longer regards Europe as a strategic priority can it forge a new role?
Brussels may not back down, it seems. New plans for election interference emerge

Knock on wood. The first high-level U.S.-Russian talks in four years. Can war can be halted to save 18-24 year-old Ukrainians issued contracts on February 11?

Feb 18, 2025

Negotiation latest

The first day of talks between the U.S. and Russian foreign minsters lasted more than four hours. They agreed to appoint teams to negotiate a deal to end the Ukraine war.

Marco Rubio for the U.S. said European representatives would join the process at a later stage. Sergei Lavrov, for Russia, said NATO must still repudiate its 2008 offer of eventual Ukraine membership.

According to a Kremlin spokesman the talks will embrace more than Ukraine, and work towards restoring U.S.-Russian relations across the board.

Where does this leave Europe?

The European Commission failed to pursue the national interest of nation states. They stood by as the Nord Stream pipeline was detonated, as the Inflation Reduction Act lured European industries to the U.S. — and that was under the Biden administration, by the way.

But it is president Donald Trump at whom they are angry. He abandoned the EC totems, that Ukraine should regain its territories, and that it's place was in NATO

There was never any way that Europe could take part in deciding the future of Ukraine. Europe's leaders have failed to conduct diplomacy for three years — in the words of the EC's foreign affairs commissioner Kaja Kallas "I don't speak to war criminals" — and now no-one wants to talk to the EU.

Two questions arise: how and why do European leaders become trapped by their own language?

And given the ominous, as yet unspoken message, that the U.S. no longer regards Europe as the strategic priority, how will Europe adapt to the new strategic architecture?.

That could a good thing because the lesson of the Ukraine war is that Europe acted as a U.S. lap dog, and then was kicked outside without its dinner.

In the post-WW2 world even the biggest European country had no say in its own security. It is time for European states to reconsider their future.

This may mark the end of European ambitions to perpetuate what influence they still have from 500 years of colonial enterprise. The colonies have mostly turned independent but old prejudices die hard.

European leaders gathered in Paris to work out how to respond. War in Ukraine may be thin gruel but the dish is familiar.

At table were the leaders of France, Germany, the UK, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, as well as EU Commission president Ursula von Der Leyen and NATO chief Mark Rutte.

After the February 17 meeting Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen said Europe must ramp up military preparedness. European Commissioner for the economy Valdis Dombrovskis said the EU had no plans to lift sanctions against Russia even if the US did so

French president Emmanuel Macron said there should be a follow up meeting.

Vance wrankles

It took a visit from the U.S. vice president J.D. Vance to shake up Europe's leaders. Where is the much-vaunted "European perspective," he asked, as they overturn elections in Romania, threaten to do the same in Germany, talk of banning opposition parties, as they censor and jail people for free speech...

Looking at this image, I'm not sure they heard him.

It reeks of supercilious passive aggression: "We are democracy." If you criticise us, you are a Putinist. Even if we have to slaughter democracy in order to silence you.

The European Commission has become subservient to NATO, its neighbour in Brussels.

If, however, Europe is going to stand on its own two feet — or 56 feet if you count 27 members plus Britain — then it needs to rethink the way it does policy, foreign and domestic.

That would include a democratic and accountable Commission which reflects the varied national interest within the community.

It must have the debate that has never been heard — not even during Brexit when the British voted narrowly in a 2016 referendum to leave the European Union.

Few journalists or politicians cared, or had a clue, how the European Commission worked. It descended into a debate about immigration because no-one knew what else to talk about.

Now the British press hints at rejoining the EU without touching on the Union's democratic failings even as crises of de-industrialisation and illegal migration overwhelm the economy.

I hear British or Swedish alt media influencers insist that Britain needs to rejoin Europe to stop Putin taking Poland; that Russia never stops scheming to expand its land empire — which has been a British talking point for 200 years and an ignorantly one-sided version of history. [1]

They speak of breaking Russia into pieces, railing like a madman in a bunker that they will never negotiate with Russia in a thousand years - while being economically, militarily and constitutionally unable to back up their words.

I thought that this baying for blood out of London and Stockholm was "his master's voice" — what they thought the U.S. wanted to hear. Or perhaps it reflects a psychological struggle in which death gives meaning to life.

The problem is much more serious. It is how the European system imposes consensus. The latest plans of Brussels to monitor politicians' speech are an ominous sign that the Commission remains intolerant of democracy (more below).

No room for dissent

The root issue is the way Europe makes policy. It does not debate, since its decision-making structures are not directly accountable.

Prof Glenn Diesen points to "Euro speak" which frames centralised decision making, through the control of language, as the pursuit of virtue. [2]

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