Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni wrote European Council President António Costa a letter saying the European Union looks "all over the place" on Ukraine, which is the polite Italian way of telling Brussels it has turned a war into a conference series with overlapping name tags.
I've watched a lot of alliances fail to speak with one voice. This is the first time the alliance needed a summit to decide who gets to hold the microphone at the next summit.
Here's what's real, per Politico Europe, Euronews, and the Kyiv Independent. In a letter seen by Politico, Meloni told Costa that Europe's overlapping Ukraine formats — Miami, Oslo, the Coalition of the Willing, the European Political Community, plus the phone call Finland's Alexander Stubb and Norway's Jonas Gahr Støre made to Vladimir Putin — are "undermining our credibility." She wants who speaks for the EU on next week's Dublin informal summit agenda, with a formal decision in December.
"I'm convinced that we all realize how, by projecting the image of a Europe that's all over the place, we're doing nothing but serving the interests of those who want this war to continue," Meloni wrote. "And I think this is unacceptable, given that human lives and the future of our security are at stake." She added she was "not asking for a seat for Italy." Just one adult voice. Radical.
Costa answered Thursday evening that Europe needs "coherence, unity and determination," a "clear and unified message," and representation "by its institutions, in accordance with the Treaties." He also said he would make time for the discussion in Dublin on November 13. So the fix for too many meetings is another meeting. If bureaucracy were a weapon system, Brussels would already have air superiority.
Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski backed Meloni, saying Europe needs "legitimate representation" because "we pay for this war." While the EU debated the guest list, President Trump met Putin's envoy Kirill Dmitriev at the White House on Thursday after a First Lady event on the temporary Oleshky ceasefire. Trump promised "a big agreement" that "might involve all of Europe." U.S.-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi are set for November 10-11. Europe is still picking a spokesperson. America is already talking to the other side of the table. That is not a strategy gap. That is a canyon with a catering budget.
I asked a fictional EU protocol officer — call him Klaus Nameplate — how many Ukraine formats currently exist. He produced three binders, two calendars, and a look of spiritual defeat. "We are very unified," he said, "about needing to become unified."
On the sewer scale, this earns four rats out of five. One rat for Miami, Oslo, and Dublin all claiming the same war. One rat for a phone call to Putin that somehow counted as European process. One rat for Costa's answer being a calendar invite. One rat for wanting a seat at talks without assigning a bottom yet.
Meloni said the quiet part with a stamp on it. The conference class would prefer another working group. Human lives, she noted, are still waiting for the working group's lunch to end.
And here's your bill: U.S. regular gas averaged about $4.10 a gallon this week per AAA, more than a dollar higher than a year ago — what a European security muddle feels like at the pump while the nametags argue in Dublin.
This article is satire. The Demorat is a parody news site; real facts are drawn from the linked sources, and jokes, invented scenes, and fictional characters are not real.
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