Politics

Meloni warns of need for dedicated EU envoy to avoid 'condemning Europe to irrelevance' in peace talks

• 2 min read
Meloni warns of need for dedicated EU envoy to avoid 'condemning Europe to irrelevance' in peace talks
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni during a press conference on April 20, 2026 in Rome, Italy. (Antonio Masiello/Getty Images)

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has urged European Council President Antonio Costa to appoint a dedicated EU envoy for Ukraine peace talks, warning in a letter circulated Nov. 5 that failing to do so could risk "condemning Europe to irrelevance" in such diplomatic efforts.

In the letter, Meloni cited her concern over the growing number of recent initiatives — including an Oct. 10 meeting in Miami between U.S., Ukrainian, and European officials, a subsequent meeting in Oslo on Oct. 20, and Finnish Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store's call on Oct. 27 with Russian President Vladimir Putin — as well as other planned meetings in the coming days.

Meloni warned that this proliferation of different, sometimes overlapping peace initiatives risked making Europe appear "utterly lacking in credibility in handling one of the most complicated dossiers our nations are facing."

Representatives from the U.S., Ukraine, NATO, and several European countries met in Brussels on Nov. 4 to discuss efforts to end Russia's war ahead of the next round of trilateral talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the U.S., scheduled for Nov. 10-11, in Abu Dhabi.

Italy did not take part in that meeting, with Meloni writing in the letter she had "learned about it" taking place.

"I am convinced that we all realize how, by giving the image of a Europe that is proceeding in disarray, we are doing nothing but serving the interests of those who want this war to continue. And I think it is unacceptable, given that human lives and the future of our security are at stake," Meloni wrote.

For this reason, Europe now faces an "unavoidable" need to establish a unified mandate and "speak with one voice" on the war in Ukraine, according to Meloni.

An EU official confirmed to the Kyiv Independent that the letter's content matches the version shared by journalists online.

Meloni appealed to Costa to raise the proposal for a dedicated EU peace envoy at an informal meeting of EU heads of state scheduled for Nov. 13 in Dublin, and for the European Council to formalize a decision by December that it could discuss with the United Kingdom, Norway, and other interested non-EU countries.

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Kate Tsurkan

Culture Reporter

Kate Tsurkan is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent who writes mostly about culture-related topics. Her newsletter Explaining Ukraine with Kate Tsurkan, which focuses specifically on Ukrainian culture, is published weekly by the Kyiv Independent and is partially supported by a generous grant from the Nadia Sophie Seiler Fund. Kate co-translated Oleh Sentsov’s “Diary of a Hunger Striker,” Myroslav Laiuk’s “Bakhmut,” Andriy Lyubka’s “War from the Rear,” and Khrystia Vengryniuk’s “Long Eyes,” among other books. Some of her previous writing and translations have appeared in the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Harpers, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She is the co-founder of Apofenie Magazine and, in addition to Ukrainian and Russian, also knows French.

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