The EU sees a "positive direction" in the Ukraine negotiations but is keeping its distance from Trump and Putin.

BarcelonaThe European Union is holding its own against Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, but is celebrating its start of peace negotiations on UkraineAfter the meeting of Ukrainian and American authorities in GenevaEuropean Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa celebrated the "significant progress" in discussions on a peace plan for the war provoked by Russia and asserted that they are moving in the "right direction." However, European leaders and Volodymyr Zelensky are not budging on any of the main red lines they have maintained since the beginning of the invasion and are demanding three key conditions: that Ukraine's future be within the EU and NATO, no territorial concessions to the Russian regime, and no limitations on the army's military capabilities. EU leaders maintain that the bloc remains "united" and that the EU has had a "strong presence" in the talks held this weekend in Switzerland, which the US and Ukraine also declared to represent "significant progress." In fact, Brussels is working closely with Kyiv. Hours before Monday's informal meeting of European leaders on Ukraine, the President of the European Council and the Ukrainian leader spoke by phone to coordinate and present a united front. The conditions the EU is putting forward are the same as those demanded by Zelensky, who is expected to meet with Trump at the White House later this week. Therefore, as usual, both Von der Leyen and Costa reiterated Ukraine's sovereignty and reminded Moscow and Washington that they do not intend to accept any agreement or move that does not have Kyiv's approval. "The choice of Ukraine's destiny must be in its hands," the head of the European Commission insisted in a statement without taking questions from Luanda, where the summit between the European Union and the African Union was held.

Zelensky, in turn, echoed the sentiments of European leaders on Monday. The Ukrainian president reiterated that Putin instigated the war and that no peace agreement has been reached due to Moscow's lack of genuine will. He identified the Russian regime's expansionist ambitions as the "main obstacle to achieving peace." "Putin wants legal recognition for everything he has stolen," he declared at the Platform for Crimea forum in Sweden on Monday. Furthermore, he issued a warning to his European and international partners: "He wants it not only from Ukraine, but from the entire world."

The EU and Ukraine stand firm

The first plan secretly agreed upon by the United States and Russia included the vast majority of the maximum demands Putin has been making since talk of a potential peace agreement began. Some international media outlets even suggest that it was a Russian document and that the US administration simply accepted it, at least in large part. Immediately afterward, Trump intensified the pressure on Zelensky, whom he branded ungrateful, and gave him an ultimatum to respond by Thursday, November 27, Thanksgiving Day.

Despite this pressure, both Zelensky and the EU leaders have remained firm—at least for now—in their positions, although the Ukrainian president he admitted in a speech last Friday that perhaps they should "sacrifice their dignity" to safeguard relations with a "key partner" like the United States. The European bloc fears that a bad agreement would not only be detrimental to Ukraine, but to the security of the entire EU. At this point, it has already presented a counterproposal to the one put forward by the US, and with Ukraine, it has managed, for the moment, to get the Trump administration to downplay the importance of the first peace plan presented by the White House itself, and even the timeframe for concluding the negotiations. European leaders are expected to continue discussing the issue in a virtual meeting this Tuesday within the framework of the so-called coalition of volunteers, which includes states such as Germany, the United Kingdom, and France, among others.

Thus, the European counterproposal keeps the door wide open to Ukraine's potential future accession to NATO and avoids accepting the cession of territories that Russia has invaded. The 28-point peace plan—drafted by Vladimir Putin's special envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, and Trump's representative, Steve Witkoff—has been substantially modified by the European bloc and reduced to just 19 points. It establishes that the front line must be the starting point for negotiations, but also includes a limitation on Ukraine's military capabilities: "The size of the Ukrainian army is limited to 800,000 troops in peacetime," 200,000 more than stipulated in the document. European leaders also advocate giving Ukraine more time to negotiate a potential peace agreement and, in fact, see Trump's imposition of this Thursday as the deadline as almost impossible to meet. Some member states indicate that, in any case, some intermediate progress toward a potential peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia could be achieved this Thursday.

Moscow considers the plan unacceptable

But the Kremlin did not like the counterproposals presented by the EU. Kremlin advisor on international affairs, Yuri Ushakov, called them "completely counterproductive" and denied that they would "work" for Russia. In contrast, Moscow views the first peace plan, which it secretly negotiated with Washington, more favorably, stating that "many of the points seem quite acceptable." In any case, some foreign ministers from the main EU member states and Ukraine agreed in a call this Monday that they will continue to put pressure on Putin. Thus, the European partners maintain their intention to increase sanctions against the Russian regime and to allocate Russian funds frozen within the EU to help Ukraine. However, it remains to be seen to what extent the EU and Zelensky are willing and able to withstand the pressure from Putin and Trump and avoid giving in to the maximum demands of Russian expansionism.