00:00European Council President Antonio Costa has defended his surprise decision to open a diplomatic channel with the Kremlin to assess
00:08whether conditions exist for peace negotiations to take place.
00:12His team concluded following their assessment that the possibility is in fact not currently viable.
00:18The issue, however, dominated the EU summit in Brussels on Thursday, as he had always presented a hardline stance against
00:26negotiating with or communicating with the aggressors.
00:30No clear explanations emerged as to why Costa, who has thus far made preserving EU unity a central theme of
00:36his presidency, decided it was the right time to reach out to Moscow.
00:41Earlier this week, it had emerged unexpectedly that his chief of cabinet, Pedro Lurti, had held several phone calls with
00:48a top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
00:51Costa explained that he had asked for contact to be made to simply be ready when the moment comes to
00:57defend the bloc's interests,
00:58and that the calls were brief contacts and not negotiations or exchanges of substance.
01:04The 27 member states were divided, with some place in Costa as the natural representative of the EU's interests,
01:11while others like Poland, the Baltics and the Nordics condemned the move, stressing that it wasn't the right time to
01:17engage with Russia.
01:18They also slammed him for taking the decision without consulting member states prior.
01:23The 27 member states fra provider.
01:24The 28 member states that the cousins who lost government, the NPR, was anchored as the event,nioANних
01:25-requent, and deren ceased. So thank you.
01:25Stay tuned. Stay
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