BRUSSELS: Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever called on Saturday for the EU to be mandated by its member states to negotiate with Russia, having failed thus far to get Moscow to back down on its war on Ukraine.
“Since we are not capable of threatening (Russian President Vladimir) Putin by sending weapons to Ukraine, and we cannot choke him economically without the support of the United States, there is only one method left: making a deal,” he told the Belgian newspaper L’Echo.
Bringing Russia to its knees would only be possible with “100 percent support from the United States,” he said.
But De Wever said he believes the US is not fully on Ukraine’s side, sometime seeming “closer to Putin” than the Kyiv’s leader.
“Without a mandate to go and negotiate in Moscow, we are not at the negotiating table where the Americans will push Ukraine to accept a deal. And I can already say that it will be a bad agreement for us,” he said.
Several European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, have recently sought to revive contact with Putin, aiming at not leaving it to US President Donald Trump alone to reach a settlement for the invasion launched by Russia in February 2022.
But the EU’s chief diplomat Kaja Kallas has said the bloc must first reach an agreement on what is expected from Russia before directly approaching Putin.
Last month Kallas said that Europe should formulate “maximalist demands” and push the Kremlin to make concessions, including by agreeing to reduce its armed forces.
