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The EU will be represented at the Ukraine talks in Abu Dhabi, but the official role of European representatives remains unclear

Raluca Ioana Draghici

9 November 2026, 17:24

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The European Union will have representatives at the peace negotiations on Ukraine, scheduled to begin on Tuesday, November 10, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Officials from Ukraine, Russia, and the United States are expected to attend the talks, while the Europeans’ participation was confirmed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

“The EU will be present alongside our partners,” von der Leyen wrote on the X platform, without specifying, however, whether the European representatives would participate directly in the negotiations or have observer status.

According to Politico, the European Commission will be represented by Bjoern Seibert, Ursula von der Leyen’s chief of staff, while the European Council will be represented by Anna-Maria Boura, the chief foreign policy adviser to President António Costa. National security advisers from France, Germany, and the United Kingdom are also expected at the meeting.

The format of the talks has not been definitively established. A European official stated that EU representatives would not be present in the negotiating room, while other officials said that their role would be clarified as the talks progress.

European participation comes amid divisions among EU leaders over the bloc’s representation in dialogue with Russia. The resumption of trilateral negotiations was discussed on October 21 in St. Petersburg between Vladimir Putin and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff. Security guarantees for Russia and Ukraine could be on the meeting’s agenda.

Context: before the resumption of the Abu Dhabi negotiations, Russia demanded a strictly trilateral format and challenged the presence of Europeans

A few days earlier, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff had announced that Russia and Ukraine were resuming peace negotiations in Abu Dhabi, under American mediation. According to the plan presented, the agenda was to include postwar security guarantees, reducing tensions, humanitarian issues, and concrete steps toward ending the war, while before the meeting, U.S. negotiators were to travel to Brussels for consultations with France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the EU, and NATO.

At the same time, the Kremlin stated that European officials should not participate directly in the discussions. Dmitry Peskov said that “the negotiations will be trilateral between Russia and Ukraine, with mediation by the United States” and that Moscow did not expect Europeans to be present at the negotiating table. In parallel, France stated that it would be represented at the meeting, despite Russian opposition, including after the strong reactions of officials in Moscow to the idea of European participation.

Before the round, Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke with Ursula von der Leyen to coordinate their positions, so that the trilateral discussions would produce results and restart diplomatic efforts to stop the war.