Meloni Tells Brussels It Is 'All Over the Place' on Ukraine and Demands One Voice

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni wrote to European Council President António Costa on 5 November warning that the EU's multiple, overlapping diplomatic formats on Ukraine are destroying its credibility, and asking that the question of how Europe speaks with one voice be added to the agenda of the informal leaders' meeting in Dublin on 13 November. The letter was seen by POLITICO and Euronews.

The immediate trigger was the week's diplomacy. Officials from France, Germany and the United Kingdom, the so-called E3, met representatives of the United States and Ukraine in Brussels. National security advisers had gathered in Miami in October. Norway hosted a round in Oslo at which Italy attended in place of France rather than as an additional participant. Finland's Alexander Stubb and Norway's Jonas Gahr Støre had called Vladimir Putin directly. A Coalition of the Willing meeting and a European Political Community summit are both scheduled, the latter on 12 November, the day before leaders meet in Dublin.

What Meloni actually wrote

The language was blunt for a letter between a prime minister and a Council president. Proceeding in disarray, with initiatives that chase and overlap one another, would not help Europe, she wrote, either with its partners or with those it must convince to stop a senseless aggression.

She went further than process. By projecting the image of a Europe that is all over the place, she wrote, the Union is doing nothing but serving the interests of those who want this war to continue, and that was unacceptable given that human lives and the future of European security were at stake. All of it, she said, is making Europe less credible.

Crucially, she pre-empted the obvious objection. I am not asking for a seat for Italy in this or that format, she wrote. The demand was for a single legitimate European representation, a position Rome has pushed since January, when Meloni first publicly floated the idea of a special envoy for Russia-Ukraine talks.

Costa's reply

Costa responded on Thursday evening, thanking Meloni for setting out her concerns so clearly and agreeing that Europe needs to act with coherence, unity and determination.

The substance of his answer, though, was procedural. The European Union's participation must be organised in a manner that enables it to convey a clear and unified message, he wrote, and the Union's interests need to be represented by its institutions, in accordance with the Treaties. He noted he had raised the issue on several previous occasions in discussions between leaders. No name was put forward.

That formulation is the classic Brussels deflection, and it is not empty. Under the Lisbon Treaty, foreign policy representation belongs to the High Representative and the European Council President, not to a national leader. Costa is saying that if Europe needs a voice, the machinery already exists and the answer is to use it rather than invent a new post.

Who agrees, and who does not

Poland's Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski backed Meloni. We need to have a legitimate representation of Europe in the process because we pay for this war, he told POLITICO, adding that eastern Europe and Scandinavia must be part of the conversation. His preferred format would stick to the Lisbon Treaty plus possibly the United Kingdom.

France, Austria, Czechia and Luxembourg have also expressed support for the envoy idea at various points. But Czech President Petr Pavel made clear on 5 November that he is not seeking to represent Europe in any negotiations, removing one plausible candidate.

Meanwhile Italy's exclusion is structural rather than accidental. The format is coalescing around the E3, the EU, NATO and Ukraine, a grouping in which Rome has no chair. Meloni is also under domestic pressure: the opposition accuses her government of international irrelevance, and parts of her own majority want military assistance to Kyiv wound down.

Why the mechanism matters more than the complaint

There is a live and unresolved tension in the European position. The Union says it must be at the table to protect its interests and to prevent a lopsided deal being imposed on Kyiv. It has not agreed on a single person or institution to lead that representation, and the member states most active diplomatically are the ones least inclined to hand the role to Brussels.

Dublin will test whether that can be settled. The informal European Council is not a decision-making format, which means the realistic outcome is a mandate to work out a mechanism rather than a mechanism itself. But the timing is unforgiving: the E3 channel is producing meetings, Washington and Moscow are talking bilaterally, and every week without an agreed European representative makes the eventual settlement harder for the EU to shape.

The awkward fact for Costa's institutional argument is that Meloni's critique is not really about who holds the pen. It is that no institution has yet been mandated to hold it, and the leaders who do have direct channels are using them.