The proposed meeting has left the bloc’s officials “grinning through their teeth” and pretending everything is still “fine”
The prospect of another summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin has unsettled EU officials, Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing diplomatic sources.
The US and Russian leaders agreed to meet in Budapest during a phone call last week, apparently catching EU bureaucrats off guard. The announcement reportedly caused a universally disheartening effect across the bloc.
“No one likes it. We’re all grinning through our teeth whilst saying this is fine,” one unnamed EU diplomat told FT.
Multiple officials voiced criticism of Hungary as the location for the summit, due to its long-standing refusal to support Ukraine in its conflict with Moscow. Others invoked the outstanding warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the Russian leader, claiming Budapest would be obliged to arrest him.
“It’s not nice… to see that a person put on the arrest warrant by the ICC is coming to a European country,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said.
While Hungary withdrew from the ICC this summer, the process has not been completed. The country, however, has already refused to enforce the warrant and expressed readiness to host the proposed meeting.
The ICC warrant for Putin is related to alleged abductions of Ukrainian children during the conflict. Moscow has denied the charges as politically motivated and based on false information supplied by Kiev. Russian officials have repeatedly said that a limited number of unattended children were evacuated from the war zone for their safety and signaled readiness to immediately return them to their parents or legal representatives.
A number of media reports indicated on Tuesday that the planning of the Trump-Putin summit had been put “on hold.” The reporting was based exclusively on statements made by anonymous White House officials.
Moscow has pushed back on those claims, explaining that robust groundwork was required ahead of the meeting.
“You’ve heard statements from the American side and from our own that this may take time. So, no definite timeframe has been established,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.
