EU leaders meet Friday in Dublin for the first time to discuss artificial intelligence, but tensions over who represents Europe in peace talks on Ukraine are poised to dominate the agenda. European Council President António Costa has put AI on the leaders’ agenda for the first time, at an informal summit in Dublin on Friday. It’s a good fit for the informal format. Leaders can speak more freely without having to adopt political declarations at the end.
The President had already intended to put this discussion on the agenda of the European Council. It’s not always easy. Sometimes it is swamped by current events,” said one EU official who declined to be named.
And that is precisely what has happened. The event was supposed to be about AI, but the subject of who should represent the EU in the talks on Ukraine has taken over.
Ukraine was added to the agenda after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni wrote to Costa stressing that the fact that the EU was engaging in the negotiations in several formats made it “less credible”. She called for a clear mandate to participate in the talks.
Costa agreed to add the item and seemed to self-nominate for the role, saying that “the interests of the European Union must be represented by its institutions, in accordance with the Treaties.” He’s got support already. Costa would be the natural choice as a joint EU ambassador, Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Luc Frieden said to reporters on Thursday.
We are heads of government and we have a representation. And there’s President Costa. We chose him. He is President of the European Council. “I can live with somebody else too but, you know, we have a President,” Frieden added.
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