First talks about EU envoy on Ukraine war to dominate Dublin summits

European leaders are flocking to Dublin for two days of summits dominated by the Ukraine war, which pushed talks on AI down the agenda. Dublin will host some 55 leaders from the European Political Community (EPC) club on Thursday (12 November) and the 27 EU leaders for an informal meeting on Friday. The EPC was formed in reaction to Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and included Nato allies Iceland, Turkey, Norway, and the UK, as well as Ukraine, Moldova, and South Caucasus states. It was described as “speed dating, if you like, for high-level politicians” by former Irish leader Leo Varadkar in remarks to media this week. Meanwhile, EU Council president António Costa has invited two AI gurus for a Q&A with the EU leaders, with both events to take place in Dublin’s booming docklands, which hosts the European HQs of several US Big Tech firms. But if the EPC did little more than friendly mingling at past events, this one gives leaders a chance to sound out views on what the US and Russia are billing as the creation of a new “security architecture” in Europe. And if Costa had aimed to focus on Europe’s “AI sovereignty” on Friday, then even a Nobel prize-winning expert, Geoffrey Hinton, who is known as the “Godfather of AI” for his work with Google, might struggle to hold the room’s attention, as Europe debates how to handle the US-led latest push to end the Ukrainian war. Costa has agreed to discuss the creation of a potential EU envoy for the peace process on Friday. This would be an initial debate about the structure and mandate of the role, an EU source said, while aiming to leave the nomination of individual candidates until the next summit, in December. For his part, Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelensky has urged the EU to wrap up the process by the end of November, so that all sides could "speak at the level of leaders", following talks in Abu Dhabi this week, which were attended by at least seven officials from the EU and Nato, some half a dozen Ukrainians, 11 Russians, and the US delegation. But he has cast doubt on whether Russia really aims to discuss peace, given that its negotiators "think and say they have already occupied half of Donbas [a Ukrainian region], which remains under our control", and that they allotted fewer than 120 minutes to the final meeting in the UAE. "However peace talks unfold, Europe will have Ukraine’s back. Sanctions on Moscow stay in place and will be strengthened," said EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas in Paris on Tuesday. The summit talks come after Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni lamented the current “disarray” of various European diplomatic formats dealing with the war, and after Poland criticised the “Shell Bay format” – named by the Trump administration after a Florida golf club – in which delegates from France, Germany and the UK spoke on behalf of Europ “The last thing we want is western Europe dealing with Russia over the heads of the east Europeans,” Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski said last week. Meanwhile, EU leaders will also informally discuss the bloc's next long-term budget in Dublin on Friday, amid a new row over Ukraine between Germany, Hungary, and Slovakia. Merz vs. Fico