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The European Union's top diplomats will meet the director of the Peace Board in Brussels on Monday, following an uncertain and controversial embrace of US President Donald Trump's efforts to secure and rebuild the war-torn Gaza Strip.
Nikolay Mladenov, a former Bulgarian politician and UN diplomat chosen by Trump to run the Peace Board, will meet with EU foreign policy chief Kaia Kallas and foreign ministers from across the 27-nation bloc. EU diplomats are also expected to discuss the war in Ukraine and new sanctions on Russia.
The EU has deep ties to Israel and the Palestinians. It now plays a crucial supervisory role at the Rafah border crossing and is the Palestinian Authority's main donor.
The question of whether to cooperate with the Trump-led board has divided capitals from Nicosia to Copenhagen. The EU supports the United Nations mandate in Gaza.
EU members Hungary and Bulgaria are full members of the board, as are EU candidate countries Turkey, Kosovo and Albania.
Twelve other EU countries sent observers to the inaugural meeting in Washington on Thursday: Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. The EU flag was displayed at the event alongside the observer and EU member states.
European leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen declined the invitation to join, as did Pope Leo XIV. But von der Leyen sent European Commissioner for the Mediterranean, Dubravka Suica, to the Washington meeting as an observer.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said sending Suica without consulting the European Council, the bloc's group of leaders, violated EU regulations.
“The European Commission should never have participated in the Peace Board meeting in Washington,” Barrot said in a post on X, adding “beyond the legitimate political issues raised by the ‘Peace Board,’ the Commission must scrupulously respect European law and institutional balance in all circumstances.”
Trump’s growing ambitions for the board range from governing and rebuilding Gaza as a futuristic metropolis to challenging the UN Security Council’s role in conflict resolution. But they may be tempered by the realities of dealing with Gaza, where there has been limited progress so far in achieving the narrower goals of the ceasefire.
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