Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has written to European Council President Antonio Costa calling on the European Union to appoint a single representative for negotiations with Russia over Ukraine, warning that the bloc risks becoming irrelevant in the peace process if it cannot decide who speaks for it.

Source: dpa (German Press Agency)

"What I continue to call for is that a decision be taken once and for all as to who sits at the negotiating table on behalf of the European Union and with what mandate," Meloni wrote in the letter, which the German news agency dpa obtained and reported on Thursday 5 November.

Source: dpa (German Press Agency)

Meloni argued that the EU's approach to negotiating with Russia has so far lacked a clear path, and that a disjointed approach — in her words, initiatives that are at odds with one another and overlap — would help neither the bloc's partners nor those it needs to persuade, in her phrase, "to put an end to senseless aggression". Unlike the United States, the EU has not appointed any representative to lead efforts to push Moscow to end the war, which has now run for more than four years since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Source: dpa (German Press Agency)

A crowded calendar, no single European voice

To make her case, Meloni listed the recent and upcoming negotiating formats in which Europe has appeared in fragmented form — meetings in Miami, Oslo, Helsinki and Brussels, and forthcoming meetings in Berlin and Abu Dhabi, where US-brokered Ukrainian and Russian delegations are expected to meet on 10-11 November — arguing that proceeding in a disorderly manner, with initiatives that follow and overlap one another, will not help Europe with its partners or with those it needs to convince to stop the war, Agence Europe reported from the letter's text.

Source: Agence Europe

Meloni said she is seeking no specific role for herself or for Italy. She proposed that the EU's 27 leaders discuss the question on the sidelines of the European Political Community summit in Dublin on Thursday 12 November, and that, after consultations with the United Kingdom, Norway and other European partners outside the EU, the European Council then take a formal decision at its December summit.

Source: Agence Europe

Speaking from Warsaw, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said he agreed with Meloni, Agence Europe reported — an early sign that her call has support beyond Rome.

Source: Agence Europe

One name in the frame says no

The letter landed on the same day Czech President Petr Pavel — named in press reports last month among five European figures considered as possible chief negotiators with Russian President Vladimir Putin — told reporters after the Visegrad Group presidents' summit in Trencin, Slovakia, that he had no ambition to become a European negotiator for ending the war, and that no names had been discussed. It is up to European states to decide whom they consider their representative, Pavel said, according to reports of his remarks.

Source: Reports of Pavel remarks, Trencin (via Wisevoter)

European unity on Ukraine was also on display in Brussels this week, where the EU disbursed fresh support for Kyiv alongside security-guarantee talks. Read: EU Disburses Support for Ukraine in Brussels

What happens next

Nothing is decided yet: Meloni's letter is a demand for a decision, not the decision itself. The sequence she proposes runs Dublin on 12 November, consultations with London, Oslo and other partners, then a formal European Council choice in December — notably, after the 10-11 November Abu Dhabi talks at which Europe wants a seat. Whether the 27 can agree on one negotiator, and on the mandate that person carries into any room with Moscow, is the test her letter sets.