The group started taking shape this week in the wake of the Munich Security Conference when French President Emmanuel Macron invited a small number of like-minded countries to Paris on Monday to discuss the implications of Washington’s embrace of Russia over Ukraine.
By Wednesday, that initial group — composed of the leaders of France, the United Kingdom, Poland, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark, plus the heads of NATO, the European Commission and Council — had more than doubled, widening to 19 nations including Canada. Non-EU countries such as Norway and Iceland attended as well.
As host of Wednesday’s talks, Macron pushed back against Trump and insisted that Russia started the war, rather than Zelenskyy, as Trump claimed. The French president said the new grouping sought Ukrainian involvement in the talks and insisted on the need for security guarantees for Kyiv.
Most critically, Macron said it was unacceptable for the U.S. and Russia to negotiate over European leaders’ heads. “The security concerns of the Europeans will have to be taken into account,” he stressed.
“There’s an ideological dimension to this group, post-Munich,” said Luuk van Middelaar, founding director of the Brussels Institute for Geopolitics. “The fact that we are talking in this format one week after the Trump-Putin phone call is a sign of how fast things are changing in the world.”
The list of the attendees largely overlaps with the membership of NATO and the European Union, but with a few major differences. The United States isn’t a part of it, and neither are Russia-aligned Hungary and Slovakia. Nor is NATO member Turkey, though several commentators have called for Ankara to be included in future talks.
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