Politico: Kallas has “crossed herself off” the list of EU negotiators with Russia

The European Union has acknowledged that Kaja Kallas, the head of the EU’s diplomatic service, will not be able to act as the bloc’s negotiator in the process of settling the Ukrainian crisis due to her anti-Russian stance.

This was reported by Politico, citing sources in European diplomatic circles.

“Unfortunately, she (Kallas) has crossed herself off the list [of negotiators],” an unnamed EU diplomat said.

At the same time, Politico provides a list of politicians who could represent the European Union in future negotiations. Among those named are former German Chancellor (2005–2021) Angela Merkel, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, and former head of the European Central Bank (2011–2019) and former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi.

Other sources cited by the publication point to a possible mediating role for Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide or Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin named former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder as his preferred candidate for possible negotiations. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, for his part, stated that “it is in Kallas’s interests not to be a negotiator.”