FRANCE: Europe holds emergency meeting on response to Trump

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European leaders met on Monday for emergency talks in Paris called by French President Emmanuel Macron to agree a coordinated response to a shock policy shift on the war in Ukraine by the new US administration of Donald Trump.

With European policymakers leaving the annual Munich Security Forum dazed by US Vice President JD Vance’s withering attack on the European Union, key EU leaders, as well as UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, were in Paris for the summit.

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In the most concrete sign yet of the US policy shift, Washington and Moscow’s top diplomats on Tuesday were due to have the first such face-to-face meeting since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, a clear sign that Trump wants to bring Russian President Vladimir Putin in from the cold.

Facing one of their biggest challenges in years, European leaders fear that Trump wants to make peace with Russia in talks that will not even involve Kyiv, let alone the European Union.

Other key participants in the summit include NATO chief Mark Rutte, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen – who has in the last weeks battled to rebuff Trump’s territorial claim to Greenland – and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.