Opinion

Europe earned a seat at the Ukraine talks. One negotiator can take it.

Moscow set the guest list, and Europe still has no one to send. On 13 November EU leaders must name a single negotiator with a standing mandate, before the next round opens.

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said on 28 October that Europeans could get to the talks if they buy tickets, but no one intends to invite them to the negotiating table. EU leaders have still not agreed on who represents them, after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni complained about a lack of unified approach. That order of events is the failure, and it is ours to fix. One European negotiator with one mandate, seated where Ukraine's security is decided and not briefed afterwards, would give us Europeans the voice that, as Friedrich Merz said, only we can supply.

The European Commission hosted Ukraine, the United States, France, Germany, the UK, NATO and the World Bank in Brussels on 4 November. Two weeks after Ushakov's words, procedure is still our answer to being told we are not wanted.

In Berlin on 3 November President Volodymyr Zelensky said Europe is present even in the three-way Ukraine-Russia-US talks through national security advisers who are briefed by Kyiv or sit at the table, and Merz agreed. Advisers briefed by another government are not representation; they are a courtesy. Merz himself said that central elements of a peace solution, whether on sanctions or the security architecture, can only be solved with us Europeans. At those same Brussels talks, US envoy Steve Witkoff said his team would also raise that architecture. Czech President Petr Pavel, reportedly among the favourites for the negotiator's job, has warned that the window to join can close if capitals insist on a fully unified position.

Those who would wait say a peace between Ukraine and Russia is not Europe's to shape, and that one more voice at the table only slows Kyiv down; a negotiator without a unified line would speak for no one. But that is not what Kyiv asks. Zelensky listed among his aims for the three-way talks in Abu Dhabi a leaders' meeting with Europe's unconditional participation. A voice that slows nothing and earns a mandate can answer the worry better than an empty chair.

The powers are being built; the voice is missing. On 13 November, when EU leaders discuss how the bloc is represented, they must appoint that negotiator with a standing mandate for any Ukraine peace format, and each capital must back it before the next round opens, not after. The money and guarantees are already on the table; the mandate should be the price of them. Name one negotiator. Take the seat.