US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has cancelled a planned meeting with the European Union’s High Representative Kaja Kallas, leaving her to scramble for talks with lower-level officials instead.
Kallas’ team publicly announced the meeting with Rubio, indicating the pair would hold bilateral talks on the war in Ukraine and the “transatlantic relationship”.
On February 24, Kallas spoke about the planned meeting with Rubio and said she would “reach out to the new US administration”.
“I am also travelling tomorrow to the United States to meet [Secretary of State], Marco Rubio, and others there to discuss these issues because it is extremely important,” she said.
Kallas also demanded that the EU and Ukraine be granted a seat at the table in peace talks.
“I have been very clear that no deal without us, without Ukraine or without Europe will work in practice – and that is for the United States, which also needs to work with us,” she stated when she announced the meeting with Rubio.
Kallas said she wanted to discuss the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the suspension of sanctions against Syria and the state of affairs in Israel.
“It is going to be a very intense day and [I am] looking forward to it,” she said.
Yet after she took the plane to Washington, Rubio’s team informed her there were “scheduling issues”.
Rubio’s public calendar for February 26 did not even mention Kallas’ visit, despite having a relatively light agenda, with only a Cabinet meeting at the White House at 11am.
After the “rescheduling”, her team announced a change of plans.
“For today and tomorrow, Kallas is now set to meet Senators and members of the US Congress to discuss Russia’s war against Ukraine and relations transatlantic airlines,” her team said.
She will also meet “the staff of the EU Delegation in the United States” and “will participate in a public event at the Hudson Institute”, they added.
Earlier, the EU’s foreign policy chief had been negative about the negotiations US President Donald Trump had with the Kremlin, saying the US was too willingly giving in to Russia, calling it a form of appeasement.
Bilateral talks allowed the US to tailor its diplomacy to specific allies rather than navigating the EU’s often sluggish, consensus-driven apparatus, some observers suggested.
