Dublin Is Four Days Away, and Europe Still Has No Single Voice on Ukraine

European leaders fly to Dublin this week with a question they have not answered: who is allowed to speak for the European Union in talks about ending Russia's war on Ukraine, and what that person may commit the others to. Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni put it in a letter to European Council president António Costa. Costa has replied that the Union's place in those talks must be organised so that it can send a clear and unified message, defend its interests and support Ukraine. He has agreed to open the discussion at the informal meeting of EU leaders on Friday 13 November. A representative, and the limits of that representative's mandate, are still not chosen.

Thursday 12 November is the larger gathering. About 50 leaders meet at the Convention Centre on Dublin's North Wall Quay for the European Political Community, the biggest meeting of heads of state and government Ireland has hosted. Friday's informal European Council uses the same building. Taoiseach Micheál Martin hosts a dinner at the National Gallery on Thursday evening. The Irish presidency has been planning the security, the transport and the rooms for months. The political gap Meloni described has opened in the last few days, in public.

What Meloni asked for, and what she ruled out

Meloni's letter, sent on 5 November, argued that overlapping formats are weakening Europe. She pointed to a Brussels meeting in which France, Germany and the United Kingdom sat for a European line, and to an earlier meeting in Oslo hosted by Norway and Finland. Italian officials had been in Oslo. They had not, in her view, agreed a mandate that Rome could be asked to honour later. She said Italy would reject any commitment made in Europe's name without an agreed EU mandate. She also said she was not bidding for the role herself, and that she did not want a separate Italian seat. Her request was procedural: discuss it in Dublin, consult Britain, Norway and other European partners, and take a formal decision at the December European Council. Otherwise, she wrote, Europe risks irrelevance in the negotiation.

Costa's reply, sent on 6 November, thanks her for setting the concern out clearly and agrees that the Union must be properly involved in discussions that shape Europe's security and Ukraine's future. He says the interests of the Union should be represented by its institutions, in line with the treaties. He has taken note of the request to use Dublin, and he says a way will be found to discuss it. Ursula von der Leyen received the letter as well. Commission chief spokesperson Paula Pinho said on Friday that the Commission agrees Europe must be in the negotiations for a solid and lasting peace, and for Ukraine's security. The principle is now on paper. A name is still to be chosen.

Abu Dhabi first, then a city on strike

The timing is tight for a reason. By the time the 27 sit down on Friday, Ukrainian and Russian officials are expected to have finished two days of US-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi. The agenda there already includes the security arrangements that would protect Ukraine after the fighting stops. That is exactly the sort of commitment Meloni says a European envoy must not invent on the road and present to Rome afterwards. The Kremlin's line has been that the first table stays a three-way negotiation, with Europeans briefed rather than seated. Meloni's letter is the argument that Europe cannot live with that arrangement and also cannot live with several of its own capitals freelancing a reply.

Dublin has a second collision, closer to the quay. Irish public sector unions meet mediators again this morning, and the strike planned for Thursday has not been lifted. Rallies run from noon to 2pm in eight towns, the largest of them in the capital, possibly from O'Connell Street to Government Buildings. The summit's own road closures will already be up. Leaders who have come to decide who speaks for Europe will arrive in a city whose public servants are marching because they say they have not been offered a credible pay deal. The two arguments do not cancel each other. They share a Thursday.