Tim the Ratcast here, reporting from the ventilation shaft of a Brussels conference center, where I've been living off croissant crumbs dropped by people with "Deputy Director-General" on their lanyards.
Big news out of Europe this week: the continent that has spent nearly five years insisting it must have a seat at the table on Ukraine has finally noticed the table is set, the food is out, and nobody knows whose job it is to sit down.
According to Politico, European governments are scrambling to pick a single negotiator-in-chief who could talk directly to Vladimir Putin about ending the war. The panic kicked in after U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff met Putin in St. Petersburg, and after Moscow agreed in principle to technical-level talks on postwar security guarantees, possibly as soon as mid-November. America picked up the phone. Europe is still forming a working group to decide what color the phone should be.
The names floated so far: Finnish President Alexander Stubb, European Council President António Costa, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas. That's four people for one chair. It's musical chairs, except the music is a 90-minute procedural debate in 24 official languages.
Here's the best part. At an EU summit in Brussels last week, leaders reportedly asked Costa whether it was time to talk to Putin. He said no, not yet. So the man many see as the most "neutral" candidate was handed the job of calling, and he let it go to voicemail.
Meanwhile, Czech President Petr Pavel pointed out that Putin doesn't regard the EU as an authority and doesn't want to talk to von der Leyen or Kallas. Imagine building the world's most elaborate org chart, with a Commission, a Council, a Parliament, a High Representative and a High Representative's high representative, and the guy on the other end just says "new phone, who dis?"
One unnamed diplomat told Politico, "We cannot show up with two or three people all speaking on behalf of the EU." Truly the bravest sentence ever spoken in Brussels. It took a war, a U.S. envoy and a Kremlin meeting before anyone admitted that sending a delegation the size of a wedding party might be a bit much.
Putin, for his part, has previously named former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder as the European he'd like to talk to. Kallas, who has called Schroeder a "high-level lobbyist for Russian state-owned companies," says he'd basically be sitting on both sides of the table. Which, honestly, is the only way the EU ever gets a quorum.
Stubb is getting the most buzz. Diplomats like that Finland shares a roughly 1,300-kilometer border with Russia and that he gets along with President Trump. He was also in Oslo on Tuesday with Zelensky and Witkoff, which apparently makes him the only European leader who has actually shown up in person. The bar is on the floor and Brussels is still filing a permit to step over it.
According to a totally fake Brussels press release our rats fished out of a shredder, the EU will announce its negotiator after (1) an impact assessment, (2) a gender-balanced shortlist, (3) a public consultation, and (4) a translation of the word "hello" into all 24 official languages. The estimated completion date is spring 2031, pending budget approval.
Squeak at you next time. I'll be in the vents.
This article is satire from The Demorat. It's a parody that roasts real news. The real facts come from linked reporting, and any absurd quotes, press releases or rat sources are made up for comedy.
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