Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s continued bombing of Ukraine shows his lack of willingness to negotiate, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said after the EU leaders’ summit, Radio Liberty reports.
“He is avoiding serious negotiations. As Europeans, we must draw conclusions from this and discuss it with our partners on the other side of the Atlantic,” Friedrich Merz remarked.
The Chancellor welcomed the EU’s approval of the 19th package of sanctions, which, among other things, envisages a complete halt to Russian energy imports until the end of 2027.
“This sends an important signal to Putin that we are increasing the pressure on Russia on both sides of the Atlantic. Why? Well, simply put, because we want to demonstrate to Putin that continuing his war of aggression is pointless. We are increasing pressure to create a willingness to negotiate on the Russian side so that the guns in Ukraine finally fall silent,” Merz said.
The German prime minister stressed that Ukraine needed a “reliable perspective”, recalling in this context his idea to use immobilised Russian assets to provide it with a multibillion-dollar loan.
Mention of their possible transfer to support Ukraine disappeared from the conclusions of the EU summit, instead the European Commission was asked to develop “options for financial support based on an assessment of Ukraine’s financing needs”.
“Today the European Commission was asked to develop all possible options and to present them to us before the next European Council meeting on 18 December… assets will remain immobilised. The use of interest income (to help Ukraine – ed.) will continue as before. Nothing will change in this plan and the commission will now scrutinise our options again because… there are really serious issues that we need to address. The Belgian government has again pointed to the issue of responsibility,” Merz summarised.
On October 22, US President Donald Trump said a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest had been cancelled. “It just didn’t feel right to me. It didn’t feel like we were going to achieve what we should achieve. So I cancelled it, but we will do it in the future,” he said.
Responding to reporters’ questions during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Washington, Trump said “it’s time” for tougher sanctions against Russia. Shortly before that, the US Treasury Department announced sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil, as well as their subsidiaries.