As European leaders dined on striploin in Dublin city, the main event was happening in Baldonnell

LAST UPDATE | 1 hr ago

IT WAS BILLED as being high-stakes political fanfare. 

The European Political Community summit (EPC) is the pinnacle of Ireland’s stint hosting the EU presidency. 

Fifty world leaders descended on the capital, in what has been Ireland’s biggest security operation. 

However, in the end, it essentially became a form of speed-dating for world leaders as they met on the fringes of the event for bilateral meetings. 

The EPC is French President Emmanuel Macron’s baby, pitched three years ago as “a new space for political cooperation” in the wake of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

And while Ukraine was the dominant topic at this year’s summit, it was another off-site meeting that really captured peoples’ attention. 

While Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with the Taoiseach and other leaders on Thursday, it was his meeting that evening with Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff that had everybody talking. 

News emerged on Wednesday that the US envoys were jetting into Dublin to meet with Zelenskyy, coming straight from their meeting with President Putin in Moscow. 

While reporters at the EPC media holding pen struggled with sketchy Wi-Fi and Baltic temperatures in the Convention Centre in Dublin, they were also trying to find out where exactly this meeting on Irish soil was taking place. 

The Irish media asked Foreign Affairs Minister Helen McEntee about the location, but being very diplomatic, she declined to say, stating only that the Irish government were only too happy to facilitate it. 

Baldonnel meeting

It was later revealed the meeting would take place at Baldonnel’s Casement Aerodrome on the outskirts of Dublin, where the US envoys would touch down after their four-hour flight from Moscow.

She said she was optimistic that recent developments towards peace did seem positive, but hammered home the message that despite what Putin says, Europe will have to have a seat at the table in any future peace talks. 

Advertisement

Micheál Martin echoed this at the summit’s closing press conference, where he said the US side also believed the EU should have a seat at the table. 

The Taoiseach wouldn’t be drawn on whom that person might be. Perhaps he is interested in throwing his hat in the ring for consideration?  

He indicated that there has been no final decision on whom the chosen one might be. 

Martin pointed to how it would not be about one individual, but “a team effort”. 

“What was stressed today by quite a number [of members], was it’s not just who negotiates; it’s that we have a clear, coherent vision for what a peace would look like and how that would be a sustainable peace into the future.” 

When asked if the US envoys flying in for a debrief with Zelenskyy shows that they are the real power brokers here when it comes to hammering out a peace deal with Russia, rather than the EPC “talking shop”, Martin denied this. 

He said the presence of Zelenskyy at the EPC underpins the value of the European Political Community and shows a sense of solidarity and support. 

Mentioning the financial support from EPC member countries (with today’s meeting identifying that €70 billion in funding for Ukraine will be needed next year), Martin said the defensive and military support has been “indispensable” to Ukraine. 

The day drew to a close and the dignitaries headed over to the National Gallery of Ireland for their formal dinner.

The Journal can reveal their menu for the occasion was baked potato sourdough with Glenilen Farm butter; celeriac baked in barley, yeast, hazelnut, celeriac and fino sherry sauce; Sally Barnes Wild Irish Smoked Salmon from Co Cork; and BBQ Butter Sabayon, striploin of dry-aged Ridgeway beef from Co Wicklow, with artichoke, seaweed and roasted bone marrow jus gras served with Jenny McNally’s roasted cabbage, bacon, mashed potato. 

Irish coffee gâteaux and salted Irish milk sorbet were drunk down with two French wines from 2023 and 2019. 

They were also serenaded by the Maynooth University Chamber Choir, Olwen Fouéré and Tolü Makay, who sang Danny Boy. 

Dinner was private and closed to the press, so one can only guess that leaders were checking their phones for any updates from the press conference at Baldonnel where Zelenskyy and the US envoys were meeting. 

Related Reads

EPC summit: 50 leaders, an unprecedented security operation and the ‘AI godfather’

Road blockages will not be 'tolerated', say gardaí, amid efforts to whip up Friday fuel protest

Expect foreign ships and Irish armoured vehicles as part of unprecedented EPC security build-up

Europe’s chosen one question

While there was optimism and hope that Thursday’s EPC meeting could be a historic summit in Dublin, with a breakthrough on Ukraine, what transpired is that the real diplomacy was happening behind closed doors, away from the summit itself. 

As the Taoiseach closed out his press conference on Thursday evening, when asked about the meeting at Baldonnel, Martin said: “We await the outcome.”

What reporters were told outside Casement Aerodrome was significant in terms of progress, with confirmation that both Russia and Ukraine had agreed to a prisoner swap. 

Speaking following talks with Witkoff and Kushner, which lasted just under an hour, Zelenskyy said:

“It will be the biggest, as Steve and Jared told me, the biggest exchange of war prisoners and our soldiers will come home.

“I’m very thankful to all our negotiators. This is a real result, this is very important and successful for the families and to all of us that people will come home to their families.”

It was also confirmed the Americans had made progress to ensure European representatives will be at negotiations next week.

“They will have a voice. This is important for us because the war is in Europe,” said Zelenskyy.

Kushner added: “We’ve also been working very, very closely over the past several months with Europeans, and I think that that’s been very important. We cannot conclude this deal without the Europeans being at the table.

The mood music as the summit came to a close on Thursday night was that a major breakthrough was unlikely. But positive steps that will hopefully lead to peace were achieved, with news of prisoners of war being exchanged and the confirmation that Europe will have a seat at negotiation’s next week. 

EU leaders from 27 member states will continue talking at the informal EU Council meeting which takes place back in the Convention Centre on Friday. 

But as the focus shifts from Dublin to future negotiations, the question remains if Europe’s leaders can turn their seat at the table into real influence that can shape an eventual peace deal.