EU mulls Angela Merkel or Mario Draghi as possible Vladimir Putin whisperer

Henry Foy in Brussels, Max Seddon in Berlin, Christopher Miller in Kyiv and Richard Milne in Helsinki

Vladimir Putin, left, and Angela Merkel, then-chancellor of Germany, in 2017 © Bernd Von Jutrczenka/AFP/Getty Images

EU governments are discussing whether former European Central Bank president Mario Draghi or ex-chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel could represent the bloc in potential negotiations with Vladimir Putin, as momentum gathers to reopen formal channels with Russia.

Foreign ministers will discuss the merits of possible candidates at an EU meeting in Cyprus next week after Washington and Kyiv expressed support for Europe to engage with Russia’s president over the war in Ukraine, said people briefed on the discussions.

Donald Trump’s administration, currently distracted by its own war in the Middle East, has informed EU counterparts that it is not opposed to Europe talking to Putin in parallel to US-led peace talks, three of the people said.

“They know it’s not working,” said one, referring to existing efforts to end the conflict.

Brussels shut off formal communication channels with Moscow following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, aside from sporadic outreach attempts by some EU leaders. 

But the bloc now fears that lack of progress in the US-led talks — mainly because of the Russian leader’s unyielding territorial demands, which Kyiv has rejected — has left Europe sidelined and vulnerable to a deal on unfavourable terms.

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That has prompted increasing discussion over appointing a joint envoy, notwithstanding deep divisions between states about the feasibility and scope of such a task, as well as scepticism about Putin being amenable to the approach.

In addition to Draghi and Merkel, other governments have proposed Finland’s President Alexander Stubb and his predecessor, Sauli Niinistö, as possible appointees, the people said.

European Council president António Costa, who represents the EU’s 27 national leaders, this month said the bloc was preparing for “potential” talks with Putin.

Discussions between capitals on the issue are taking place at various levels, a person briefed on the talks said, with the possibility of formal talks among EU leaders at a summit in June.

“We both agree that Europe must be involved in the negotiations,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after a telephone call with Costa on Sunday. “It is important for it to have a strong voice and presence in this process, and it is worth determining who will represent Europe specifically.”

Zelenskyy on Tuesday said he had met his foreign minister to discuss negotiations with Russia “and Europe’s possible representation in this process”. 

“We expect Europe to be strong, and for our part, we are doing everything to ensure that pan-European positions and interests are taken into account, just as Ukraine’s are,” Zelenskyy said.

A senior Ukrainian official said Zelenskyy would want “someone like Draghi” or a “strong, current [state] leader” to lead the European side in talks with Russia. Zelenskyy is expected to discuss the matter with leaders of France, Germany and the UK later this week, the official said. 

Draghi is seen as a safe pair of hands and respected across the EU, with a technocratic background that could suit the situation, the people said.

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A spokesperson for Draghi declined to comment. A spokesperson for Merkel did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Speaking at a conference on Monday, Merkel expressed regret that Europe was not included in negotiations with Putin. She also said that while underestimating Russia’s leader “would be a mistake”, it would also be wrong to underplay Europe’s “own capabilities”. 

When asked if she would step in, the former chancellor said others were probably better suited, noting that Putin would only take acting leaders seriously.

When asked about Merkel separately on Monday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said EU partners were “discussing this issue in depth” and refused to comment on individual names. 

Merkel has long been a political rival of the current chancellor, with some fellow Christian Democrats criticising her for deepening Germany’s energy dependence on Russia during her tenure. One CDU lawmaker called the idea of using her as a negotiator “nonsensical”.

One senior European official said that while Niinistö “is one of the few Europeans to have a working relationship with Putin . . . Russians are very upset with Finland at present”. The Nordic country abandoned its neutral stance and joined Nato in response to the war in Ukraine.

“I think it would have to be somebody from a country like the Netherlands or Portugal who doesn’t have the baggage that countries in the east have,” the official added.

The EU foreign ministers’ meeting will also include discussions on what Europe would demand in a post-conflict relationship with Russia, what red lines they have for a potential settlement in Ukraine, and what their prerequisites would be for opening any discussions with the Kremlin, the people added.

Putin has said he is open to talks with a European representative on the condition that the envoy has “not said all sorts of nasty things” about us. He floated his old friend and Merkel’s predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, who has been roundly rejected by the Europeans and by Kyiv.

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Dmitry Peskov, the Russian president’s spokesperson, last week praised the European efforts to open a line with Moscow last week.

“We will hope that a practical approach will win out and it has some kind of real-world impact,” Peskov said. “Putin is just a phone call away for European countries.”

Some governments are dismayed by the debate itself, and fear that it will only expose EU divisions over Ukraine and Russia.

“This is not something you discuss in public before doing it,” said one EU diplomat.

Ukraine wants Europe to push Putin to agree to an immediate ceasefire that would freeze the current front lines, according to a senior European official.

But Russia bluntly rejected an entreaty from French officials in February. “They were humiliated,” the European official said.

Russia has signalled it would be more open to a more “constructive” European message, according to people in Moscow involved in back-channel talks.

But the Europeans “still aren’t saying anything worthwhile. It’s all slogans like ‘we support a fair peace for Ukraine’,” one of the people said. 

Moscow may prefer talking to a major European power directly rather than the bloc as a whole, the person added, because “as the Europeans admit, their joint position would suck because they would pander to the marginal countries to keep European unity”.

Additional reporting by Anne-Sylvaine Chassany in Berlin

EU Reaches Agreement to Move Forward on U.S. Trade Deal

Lawmakers in Brussels had paused ratifying the deal signed last year in response to new Trump tariffs

By Ed Frankl and Edith Hancock

Updated May 20, 2026 at 6:48 am ET

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European Union negotiators on Wednesday said they reached a provisional deal to remove some tariffs on U.S. imports as part of the bloc’s trade deal signed last summer, ahead of a U.S. deadline to ramp up tariffs on cars.

The move marks an important step in what has been a tumultuous period for trans-Atlantic trade. President Trump’s so-called Liberation Day tariffs upended existing agreements last year and both sides spent months negotiating a new deal. The EU seeks to safeguard its exporters against further shocks and support EU-U.S. trade.

Lawmakers in Brussels had paused their ratification of the deal more than once this year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that some of Trump’s so-called reciprocal global tariffs were illegal. They also delayed the process when Trump threatened to raise tariffs on nations that opposed his desire to acquire Greenland, part of Denmark.

Trump later said he would impose new 25% tariffs on EU car imports if Europeans didn’t implement the agreement by July 4, after U.S. officials grew frustrated with the pace of progress in Brussels.

The trade deal “is expected to serve as a platform to continue engaging with the U.S. to lower tariffs and cooperate closely on shared challenges,” the European Council said. The agreement reached Wednesday paves the way for a final vote in the European Parliament ahead of Trump’s deadline.

EU officials also agreed on a slew of safeguards designed to protect European manufacturers. Under the text negotiated by the EU, the European Commission—the bloc’s executive arm—has the power to assess whether a surge in imports from the U.S. is harming or threatens to hamper local businesses, and suspend its side of the deal if it decides that is the case.

The commission could also suspend its side of the deal if it considers that the U.S. has failed to meet commitments set out in the agreement signed in 2025, or that the Trump administration is discriminating or targeting EU businesses.

Lawmakers had pushed for adding stronger safeguards to the legislation, including adding a “sunset clause” that would see the deal expire by the end of March 2028 unless new legislation is introduced to extend it. The EU’s negotiators ultimately agreed to keep the deal in place until the end of 2029, with the possibility to extend further.

Officials sought to protect the bloc’s metals sector by giving the commission power to reinstate tariffs on U.S. steel and aluminum if the White House continues to apply a tariff rate higher than 15% on products made with those metals imported from the EU after December 2026. The U.S. set out a tariff regime for steel, aluminum and copper in April that sets duties of up to 50% for commodity-grade metals and a 25% rate for some products made with them.

“A deal is a deal, and the EU honors its commitments,” the commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on X. “Together, we can ensure stable, predictable, balanced, and mutually beneficial trans-Atlantic trade.”

Corrections & Amplifications
President Trump imposed a new 10% global tariff in February. An earlier version of this article incorrectly put the figure at 15%. (Corrected on May 20)

In Closed-Door Talks, U.S. Demands a Major Role in Greenland

Greenlandic officials worry about the direction of the negotiations aimed at defusing President Trump’s threats to seize their island. But they have little leverage.

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By Jeffrey GettlemanMaya TekeliAnton Troianovski and Eric Schmitt

May 18, 2026

With the conflict in Iran still smoldering, President Trump’s obsession with Greenland seems like a forgotten sideshow.

But for the past four months, negotiators from the United States, Greenland and Denmark, which controls Greenland’s foreign affairs, have been holding confidential talks in Washington about Greenland’s future.

The talks were meant to give Mr. Trump an offramp to his threatsof a military takeover of Greenland and to scale back a crisis that risked breaking apart the NATO alliance. But Greenlandic leaders are worried about what is being proposed, which is a much larger U.S. role on the Arctic island. And they fear that if the conflict with Iran winds down, the president will swing his aggression back on them.

Some Greenlandic politicians say they have even circled a date on their calendars to be wary: June 14, Mr. Trump’s birthday.

An investigation by The New York Times, based on interviews with officials in Washington, Copenhagen and Greenland, has discovered:

• The United States is trying to modify a longstanding military arrangement to ensure American troops can stay in Greenland indefinitely, even if Greenland becomes independent. The notion is basically a forever clause, and Greenlanders do not like it.
• The United States has pushed the talks beyond military matters and wants effective veto power over any major investment deals in Greenland to box out competitors like Russia and China. Greenlanders and Danes strongly object to this.
• The United States is discussing cooperation with Greenland on natural resources. The island is loaded with oil, uranium, rare earths and other critical minerals, though much of it is burieddeep beneath Greenland’s ice.
• The Pentagon is rapidly moving ahead on plans for a military expansion and recently sent a Marine Corps officer to Narsarsuaq, a town in southern Greenland, to inspect the World War II-era airport, the harbor and places where American troops could be housed.

The American demands are so steep, Greenlandic officials fear, that they amount to a major imposition on their sovereignty. Despite all of the talk from Danish and American officials that Greenland’s future is up to the island’s 57,000 people, Greenlandic officials said the American demands would tie their hands for generations.

If the Americans get everything they want, said Justus Hansen, a member of Greenland’s Parliament, there will never be any “real independence.”

“We might as well raise our own flag halfway,” he said.

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State Department and Danish officials have said little about the negotiations, which are being spearheaded by one of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s top advisers, Michael Needham.

Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, the head of the Pentagon’s Northern Command, described in a recent interview with The Times the broader American vision to defend the Arctic, an arena of increased geopolitical competition as climate change melts polar ice and opens up what had been one of world’s most inaccessible regions.

General Guillot said Greenland would be part of a chain of interlinking radar stations and military bases, which also includes sites in Alaska and Canada. He said the American military needs a deepwater port and a base for Special Operations soldiers who would rotate through Greenland for training and exercises.

General Guillot said this could be done through the defense pactthat the United States signed with Denmark in 1951, when Greenland was still a Danish colony. That pact has been the jumping off point for the current negotiations, and Greenlandic and Danish officials originally tried to argue that the agreement gave the United States such a free hand for forces on Greenland that there was no need to take over the island.

Negotiators have met about five times in Washington since January, when Mr. Trump threatened to seize Greenland, saying it was essential to American national security. Though he eventually backed down and has since been absorbed by the conflict in Iran, the White House has indicated he is still deeply interested in Greenland.

So the Greenlandic, Danish and American negotiators involved in the talks hope they can reach a deal that the mercurial president will accept, officials familiar with the discussions say. The accounts made clear that there was still some distance to go. The officials who spoke to The Times asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the continuing negotiations.

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Dylan Johnson, the assistant secretary of state for global public affairs, said in a statement that the national security and economic concerns laid out by the president “are undisputed by all parties and we continue to negotiate to address those concerns on a permanent basis.”

“This is not a president who allows problems to go unsolved for future presidents to deal with,” Mr. Johnson said.

Greenlanders have been emphatic they do not want to be part ofthe United States, but Greenlandic politicians say they are OK with having more American soldiers on their soil. Thousands of American troops were stationed there during World War II and the Cold War, though the United States eventually shut down every base save one.

Still, Greenland’s leaders feel they are being pressured to make other concessions and that they have little leverage in these talks.

“None of this is fair,” said Pipaluk Lynge, the chairwoman of the Greenlandic Parliament’s foreign affairs committee. “It feels very all or nothing. The best outcome is simply not to be invaded or controlled.”

Vivian Motzfeldt, Greenland’s former foreign minister and another member of Parliament, said that if the wars in Iran and in Ukraine end, it could spell trouble for Greenland. She fears Mr. Trump would return to his obsession and Russia would also shift to the Arctic, long a strategic priority for Moscow.

“They are coming from both sides,” she said.

She and other Greenlandic politicians were bracing for June 14, the president’s birthday, and the Fourth of July.

“If he’s going to realize his policy of making the U.S. greater again,” she said, “he could use days like those.”

Some Greenlanders fear that the U.S. interest in exploring their natural resources might mean pressure to loosen their mining rules.

Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Greenland’s prime minister, said during a recent interview in his office in Nuuk, the island’s capital, “We can absolutely do business.”

But, he added, “we have very strict environmental regulations and that is how it will remain.”

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Mr. Nielsen cuts an unusual figure in the middle of a geopolitical maelstrom. Before becoming prime minister last year at age 33, he was best known as one of Greenland’s top badminton players. Since taking office, he has lined up behind Denmark, seeing Greenland’s former colonizer as the best protection against the United States.

“I’m almost tired of saying it,” Mr. Nielsen said. “But the question of Greenlandic independence and the relationship between Greenland and Denmark is something we must decide internally. It’s not something the Americans or anyone else should interfere in. ”

Officials with knowledge of the talks said the Americans are pushing to establish a strict screening mechanism and veto power to make sure Russia or China do not land any major infrastructure or resource deals.

Even though China lies hundreds of miles from the Arctic Circle, it has been increasingly active in the region and tried to come into Greenland before.

In 2018, a Chinese state company was a leading contender to build several new airports on the island, including one in Ilulissat, where thousands of visitors come each year to gaze at the icebergs. After American officials pressured Denmark to step in, Greenland opted for a Danish company.

Officials with knowledge of the current talks said Denmark and Greenland did not want the United States making decisions on investment deals, arguing it would violate Greenland’s sovereignty.

Over recent decades, Greenland has steadily gained more autonomy from Denmark, and most people on the island want to be independent some day. But Greenland lacks the intelligence capability to screen potential investors for links to Moscow and Beijing. So negotiators are discussing a process by which Copenhagen would do the screening, with American input.

The result could be that the negotiations, far from increasing Greenland’s sovereignty, end up giving Denmark more sway over the gigantic island.

Mr. Nielsen said he couldn’t “get into the specifics” of the talks but that Greenland should have the last word when it comes to who it does business with.

As he sat in his office, dressed in a black suit, black turtleneck and spotless black sneakers, he looked frustrated.

“We would like to see an end to this,” he said. “Because it’s a very strange situation.”

Famed Merops Drone Interceptor to Be Made in Europe

Europe is racing ahead of the U.S. in adopting battle-tested Ukrainian produced or tested military technology

By Alistair MacDonald

May 13, 2026 at 9:54 am ET

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The maker of Merops, the drone interceptor battle-tested in Ukraine and Iran, struck a deal to manufacture its product in Germany, in the latest move by Europe to capitalize on Ukrainian-related defense technology.

The drone, designed by Perennial Autonomy, a company backed by former Google CEO and billionaire Eric Schmidt using Ukrainian engineers, destroys other drones by detonating close by and has proven popular in Ukraine.

The Merops will be manufactured in partnership with Perennial and Munich-based Twentyfour Industries, according to Twentyfour.

A spokeswoman for Perennial said the company produces a substantial number of Merops systems in Ukraine and in broader Europe. Merops has intercepted more than 4,000 Russian drones in Ukraine, she said.

The Merops autonomously seeks an incoming drone using radio waves, radar or the target’s heat signature. When roughly a mile from its target, it uses artificial intelligence to lock onto the target and detonates nearby, according to its users. Merops can travel at speeds of more than 180 miles an hour and reach an altitude of up to around 16,000 feet, according to one user.

Ukraine has notched several firsts in drone warfare. That includes marine drones that attack Russian shipping and artificial intelligence that helps these unmanned aerial vehicles coordinate together to attack in swarms. It has also used drones to intercept other drones, like Merops.

In March, the U.S. Army rushed Merops to the Middle East to help thwart Tehran’s drone attacks.

The deal with the U.S.-based company underscores how Europe is racing ahead of the U.S. in adopting battle-tested Ukrainian produced or tested military technology.

Washington has been slow to take advantage of the country’s expertise, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky and people involved in talks between the two sides. Ukrainian drone companies are in talks with American peers to manufacture in the U.S.

Ukrainian companies are already churning out products in Germany, Poland and the U.K. Denmark, Norway and other European countries are also set to host manufacturing.

Each Merops counterdrone drone costs less than $10,000, a U.S. military official said in March, according to an earlier Wall Street Journal article. The cost per unit should drop to around $7,000 as production volume increases, the official said.

Washington and Kyiv, where relations have been fractious since the start of President Trump’s second term, have been negotiating a drone manufacturing deal since at least September, according to previous U.S. statements. Those negotiations continue.

Last year, the Pentagon forwarded a list of 12 different Ukrainian drones to several large U.S. defense companies to see if they want to build them or work with them. That list includes 10 unmanned aerial vehicles and two naval drones, according to people familiar with the matter.

“We are reluctant to admit that the Ukrainians are now probably the world leaders on both drone offense and defense,” said Eliot Cohen, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

Eurozone Industrial Production Inched Higher in March

Industry has held up well but that’s unlikely to last, an economist warns

By Don Nico Forbes

May 13, 2026 at 6:10 am ET

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Eurozone industrial output rose in March, though the war in the Middle East is expected to increasingly weigh on manufacturers across the currency area and as energy costs and supply disruptions mount.

Industrial production rose 0.2% on month, after a rise of 0.2% in February, the European Union’s statistics agency Eurostat said Wednesday.

Output picked up in March despite rising energy costs due to the Iran war. This came in part due to the frontloading of production in anticipation of sharply higher costs and potential supply disruptions ahead.

“Industry held up well in the early stage of the energy shock, but that’s unlikely to last,” Jack Allen-Reynolds, deputy chief eurozone economist at Capital Economics, said.

“Higher natural gas prices had not yet fed through to industrial electricity prices. And there is anecdotal evidence that demand was boosted in March and April by customers’ desire to get ahead of potential price rises,” he said.

Conflict in the Middle East caused oil-and-gas prices to jump in March, sounding alarm bells among manufacturers in the eurozone that are heavily reliant on energy imports. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in late April that the EU had spent an extra 27 billion euros ($31.70 billion) on energy imports since the start of the conflict.

The eurozone industrial sector was expected to rebound strongly in 2026, supported in part by Germany’s stimulus package worth up to $1 trillion. But industrial output in Europe’s largest economy fell 1.2% in March, stymieing hopes for a recovery any time soon.

While output in the eurozone has shown some resilience over the first quarter, as the conflict in the Middle East drags on, the outlook for industry—and for the broader economy—has further weakened.

Eurozone economic growth slowed in the first quarter to 0.1% from 0.2% in the prior quarter, while the European Central Bank has cut its growth forecast for this year to 0.9% from 1.2%, and also lowered its expectations for 2027.

Meanwhile, a recent survey by S&P Global pointed to even higher costs for industry at the start of the second quarter, with input-price inflation closing in on a four-year peak. This could further weigh on output in the coming months.

Capital Economics expects eurozone gross domestic product growth to slow slightly in the second and third quarters, though risks are tilted to the downside.

“If the Strait of Hormuz remains closed for longer than we assume, a mild recession is possible,” Allen-Reynolds said.