Macron’s mini-summit exposes EU disagreements over Trump’s Ukraine shake-up

“Those who go to Mar-a-Lago regularly have to be part of a strong Europe, because President Trump does not like weak friends,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned during the Munich Security Conference last weekend. Only two European leaders have so far been to the U.S. president’s Florida residence: Giorgia Meloni and Viktor Orbán. And only one, the Italian prime minister, was at the Paris meeting on Monday, urgently convened by French President Emmanuel Macron to deal with the shockwaves caused by Washington negotiating directly with Russia — and without Europe — on the war in Ukraine.

Meloni attended the meeting reluctantly. She arrived three-quarters of an hour late after several changes to her agenda. She did not want to go. She did not like the setting. Nor the prominence that Macron was assuming by summoning her. The day before, her team had leaked to the press that they did not agree with the format of the meeting. And her delay, perfectly avoidable — she had a meeting with the Italian prefects to discuss immigration — was interpreted by those attending the mini-summit as a complaint, but also as a sign of her disagreement, as her team has been busy transmitting in recent days: the Paris summit was a mistake. Meloni, of great political astuteness but incapable of feigning emotion, appeared uncomfortable, not looking at the camera for the photographers. A message, it is believed in Paris, also sent directly to the White House, like a hostage communicating by blinking.

Meloni, the leader of one of the largest European countries with the greatest internal stability at the moment, clearly embodies the difficulty that the EU will have in finding a common strategy, and also the failure of the meeting on Monday. For this reason, Macron announced on Tuesday in an interview with Le Parisien that he plans to hold a second meeting on Wednesday in which other EU countries that had felt ignored, and some non-EU states, would participate. At the last minute, the Élysée confirmed that there will be a face-to-face meeting between Macron and the interim president of Romania, Illie Bolojan, and that the French leader will then speak by videoconference with other heads of state and government, without specifying which ones. According to diplomatic sources who spoke to Le Parisien, Norway, Canada, the Czech Republic, Greece, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, and the Baltic countries are among those invited.

The Paris summit lasted three and a half hours. All the leaders made speeches. And Macron, the host, seated between Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, was careful not to speak at the end of the meeting — he only did so briefly through X at around 12.30 a.m. — to avoid sharpening the obvious divisions. And, above all, to be able to inform Trump and Zelenskiy of the conclusions of the discussion, as he had done before it began. The formula of a joint statement was also avoided, given it would be impossible to construct with such distant positions. There were significant discrepancies, according to the entourage of some participants, especially on the question of sending peacekeeping troops to Ukraine after the signing of a hypothetical agreement. The United Kingdom and France lead the countries in favor of such an initiative. Italy, Spain, and Poland (which has the largest army in the EU), showed their reluctance in the meeting, but also when giving statements to the press. Scholz provided the bluntest observation, perplexed that anyone would even consider deploying peacekeepers in a territory still at war. The German chancellor left an hour before the end of the meeting.

Debate on that issue, however, seemed necessary. The United States sent a questionnaire to European NATO countries asking them to detail what they would be prepared to offer to enforce a peace agreement, as well as what they would expect from Washington. But there was no consensus.

Unrest was also growing outside the Élysée Palace. The Czech Republic and Romania (which shares a 380-mile border with Ukraine), countries directly affected by the Russian invasion, felt marginalized. Despite having a modest army, the Czech Republic does not understand why the Élysée only invited Poland among Ukraine’s neighboring countries, “when no one has welcomed more Ukrainian refugees per inhabitant than us,” a close advisor to the Czech Prime Minister, Petr Fiala, pointed out in Le Monde, describing the French president’s attitude as “arrogant.” Prague, for its part, feels that Europe is treating it in the same way as Trump — that is, ignoring it and valuing its role in the conflict at face value.

Not even French Prime Minister François Bayrou, in his irrepressible candor, believed on Tuesday morning that the summit had served any purpose. “We are in a context similar to the 1930s, with icebergs approaching us, and the meeting in Paris at the Élysée has not succeeded in driving them away,” he lamented. The “icebergs” were at that time in Riyadh, where the meeting between Moscow and Washington was taking place, in the absence of Europe or Kyiv.

According to diplomatic sources consulted, Meloni was proven somewhat right. “It was difficult to show unity when only one party was called and it was done outside of official bodies, by a leader who does not represent the majority and who arouses suspicions among other leaders,” said sources from one of the delegations that participated in the meeting.

At the Élysée Palace, no one doubts that Meloni has cultivated a good relationship with Trump and his entourage. Communication with Elon Musk is very fluid and the Italian government is negotiating with SpaceX over a possible agreement to use a secure telecommunications system with encrypted telephone and internet services through the South African magnate’s satellite network, Starlink. If it materializes, it would be the largest project of its kind in Europe. Meloni would like to capitalize on this relationship to assert her capacity as a mediator, as a bridge between one side of the Atlantic and the other. But Monday’s summit and the conversations that Macron held with the American president put him in an uncomfortable second place.

The problem is also ideological. Meloni said during the meeting that she shared the “sense of words” of U.S. Vice President J. D. Vance, who, during the Munich Security Conference, surprised everyone by denouncing the “retreat of free speech in Europe.” In addition, Meloni refused to meet with Scholz, preferring to talk to the candidate for the chancellery of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), Alice Weidel, just nine days before the early legislative elections on February 23. Meloni’s tension with Scholz is evident. And beyond the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, with whom he has a great relationship, the German chancellor did not have many allies in Paris. The relationship with Sánchez is strained, despite the fact that both countries are now calling for similar things: increased spending through flexible fiscal rules and a joint mechanism like the one used by the EU during the pandemic. The Italian prime minister, in top form and about to reach her third year in office — a record in recent Italy — is now an enigma for her main European partners.

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