EU member states and the UK are united in taking defensive measures if a European country is attacked, and in helping the Gulf nations with whatever they can. However, they disagree on Trump's war goals and the extent to which they should support US action against Iran. There will be no unified position on the war. On the other hand, none of the member states will enter the war directly; they will not play an active role alongside the US or Israel.
As the talks on a potential peace deal on Ukraine continue today and into the weekend, the focus is on what involvement we will see from the US. Trump and later his spokesperson Karoline Leavitt insisted that the US would only join the Europeans for talks if they did not deem it a waste of time. Let's see what can be achieved before the Berlin summit, expected on Monday.
"There's a lot of criticism [in the paper], but I think some of it is also true; if you look at Europe, it has been underestimating its own power towards Russia," Kallas said on a panel at the Doha Forum in Qatar. "We should be more self-confident," she said, adding that the "US is still our biggest ally." "I think we haven't always seen eye to eye on different topics, but I think the overall principle is still there."
The diplomatic effort to end the war in Ukraine could be entering a pivotal week, the EU's foreign policy chief has said, as Donald Trump's special envoy prepared to meet Vladimir Putin after talks at the weekend with Ukraine. Steve Witkoff, the property developer turned envoy recently exposed for coaching Russian officials on how to win Trump's favour, will hold talks with Putin in Moscow on Tuesday, the Kremlin announced.
Europeans are seething over US President Donald Trump's suggestion that billions in Russian assets frozen in European countries may be used to the benefit of the US government and firms. After a Trump proposal on how to end Russia's war in Ukraine that called on Ukraine to give up territory and reduce the size of its armed forces, Europeans rushed to damage control and have now floated a counter offer.
In particular, the decision to lower the deposit facility rate - the rate through which the governing council steers the monetary policy stance - is based on its updated assessment of the inflation outlook, the dynamics of underlying inflation and the strength of monetary policy transmission.
We're advancing in the right direction at pace," Šefčovič said at a news conference. He said ongoing technical meetings between EU and U.S. negotiators in Washington would be soon followed by a video conference between himself and Greer to then "assess the progress and charter the way forward.
