European leaders meet on response to US Ukraine shift

AFP | Paris

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European leaders met yesterday for emergency talks in Paris called by French President Emmanuel Macron to agree a coordinated response to a shock policy shift on the war in Ukraine by the new US administration of Donald Trump.

With European policymakers leaving the annual Munich Security Forum dazed by Vice President JD Vance's withering attack on the European Union, key EU leaders, as well as UK Premier Sir Keir Starmer, were in Paris for the summit.

In the most concrete sign yet of the US policy shift, the top diplomats of the United States and Russia were Tuesday due to have the first such faceto-face meeting since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, a clear sign Trump wants to bring President Vladimir Putin in from the cold.

Facing one of their biggest challenges in years, European leaders fear that Trump wants to make peace with Russia in talks that will not even involve Kyiv, let alone the European Union. Trump sidelined Kyiv and its European backers last week when he called Putin to talk about starting negotiations to end the conflict and said he could meet the Kremlin chief "very soon".

Other key participants in the summit include NATO chief Mark Rutte, Danish Premier Mette Frederiksen -- who has in the last weeks battled to rebuff Trump's territorial claim to Greenland -- and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.