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Labour MP challenges ministers to trigger leadership contest as PM vows to fight on – UK politics live | Politics
Catherine West’s call for leadership contest ‘completely wrong’, says Bridget Phillipson
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, is speaking on Sky’s Sunday with Trevor Phillips.
Asked about Catherine West’s leadership challenge, she says:
Catherine is a great colleague, and I’ve known her a long time. And I have real respect for Catherine.
On this one, I do part company with her. I think she’s got this completely wrong.
She says Labour got a “real kicking” from voters.
But she says she does not think a leadership contest is the answer.
I don’t think … a leadership contest and all of the problems that that would bring is the answer.
Key events
Bridget Phillipson was the next interviewee on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, and she repeated many of the points that she made on Sky earlier.
But she also said she was really concerned about the division we are seeing in Britain. She said Reform UK did “incredibly well” in Sunderland, where they took control of the council. But she said that one of their candidates, who was elected as a candidate, is on record as suggesting “we should melt down Nigerians to fill in potholes”. She said that sort of racism had to be challenged.
Q: Is it true that Andy Burnham’s supporters have asked you to pull back because they don’t want to have a leadership contest now?
West did not answer the question. Instead she said she thought it was important to “move quickly” because “uncertainty” would be bad for Labour.
West sidesteps question about whether she would get enough MP backers to mount leadership challenge herself
Q: We spoke to Labour MPs, and most said you had no chance of getting the numbers needed for a leadership challenge?
West said she was a “fair person”. She said she would listen to what Starmer says in the speech planned for tomorrow.
If I’m still dissatisfied, I will put out my email to the parliamentary Labour party asking for names.
And the reason I’m doing that is not for me. It’s for working people. Because Labour is the only party that can beat Reform. We are the only national force that can take on Reform across the whole of the UK, and that will be the job coming up in the 2028 or ‘29 general election.
Q: But do you think you can get the numbers?
West said: “We will find out.”
She said Anna Turley, chair of the Labour party, was a good friend. She said she had asked her for a timetable for an orderly transition into a leadership contest.
And she repeated her point about wanting women to consider standing.
Kuenssberg started her main interview by asking West why she was asking the cabinet to act.
West replied:
What I’d like the cabinet to do is to reflect on the result from Thursday, where the voters sent us a very strong message that we are not good enough.
If you a school failing an inspection report, you would take the head out, wouldn’t you? Or you take the chair of the council out. The same goes for a hospital inspection or in a company. The CEO would have to take responsibility and the board would have to basically bring on new leadership.
West tells Phillipson in BBC studio she should consider standing for Labour leadership
At the start of her programme Laura Kuenssberg addressed Catherine West and Bridget Phillipson who were sitting waiting for the main interviews.
Kuenssberg told West she wanted a cabinet minister to challenge Keir Starmer. She said she was sitting next to one of them. What was her message to her?
West replied:
Well, there’s nothing stopping Bridget from standing. Why are all the men better than the women? We do need some senior women to step forward and to challenge for what is going to be a really difficult two and a half years between now and the general election, and also to take us into that second term.
In response, Phillipson said:
I love you dearly, Catherine, but I just disagree on this one.
On the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary, said Labour was at risk of becoming “extinct”. It abandoned the working class, and the working class then chose to abandon Labour. Labour needed “a completely different economic direction and political direction”, she said.
At the end of the interview Trevor Phillips asked Phillipson if she thought Starmer would lead the party into the next election, and if she wanted him to.
Phillipson replied: “Yes on both counts.”
In the panel discussion in the studio after, the journalists Anne McElvoy from Politico and Patrick Maguire from the Times both said they thought Phillipson did not show 100% enthusiasm as she answered the question in the way she did.
Q: Angela Rayner says that Shabana Mahmood’s plan to extend the amount of time immigrants have to wait until they can apply for indefinite leave to remain. Will those plans change?
Phillipson said that was subject to consultation.
But it is right that we take action on immigration. It is also right that we demonstrate to the public that not only can we control the borders, we control who lives in our country.
Trevor Phillips told Phillipson that Harriet Harman and Gordon Brown were serious people, and friends of his. But he mocked the idea that people who did not vote Labour last Thursday might have changed their mind if they had known Harman and Brown were getting appointments as government envoys.
Phillipson said that Harman and Brown were “tremendously talented people” who had “a lot to offer”.
Q: Starmer on Friday talked about Labour having made mistakes. But he did not say what they were. What have been the party’s biggest mistakes?
Phillipson said there had been a few. One of the biggest was cutting winter fuel payments for most pensions, she said.
Another problem was being “too gloomy and too negative”. She explained:
Early on people knew the country was in a mess. They didn’t need us to remind us to to remind them in such detail that the country was in a mess.
Labour losing support because people don’t think it has delivered change they were promised, Phillipson says
Asked if she had a message for Labour MPs asked to support West’s leadership challenge, Phillipson said:
What I heard [from voters during the election] was not a desire for a leadership contest, for the Labour party to spend more time talking amongst ourselves. What I heard loud and clear from voters was their deep sense of frustration that they’d voted for change in 2024. They were hopeful that that change would be delivered, and they don’t feel that we as a party, or we as a Labour government, have delivered what they wanted.
West not likely to get backing she needs to launch leadership challenge, Phillipson says
Asked what would happen if Catherine West is able to get all the signatures she needs to launch a leadership challenge, Phillipson replied: “I don’t think that will happen.”
But she said that was not the point, because the party did need to respond to the election results.
Catherine West’s call for leadership contest ‘completely wrong’, says Bridget Phillipson
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, is speaking on Sky’s Sunday with Trevor Phillips.
Asked about Catherine West’s leadership challenge, she says:
Catherine is a great colleague, and I’ve known her a long time. And I have real respect for Catherine.
On this one, I do part company with her. I think she’s got this completely wrong.
She says Labour got a “real kicking” from voters.
But she says she does not think a leadership contest is the answer.
I don’t think … a leadership contest and all of the problems that that would bring is the answer.
Starmer insists he won’t quit as PM, as former minister Catherine West seeks to trigger Labour leadership contest
Good morning. There were many predictions for Labour’s future ahead of the English, Scottish and Welsh elections, which have been terrible for the party, but there is one outcome foreseen by no one: a leadership challenge by Catherine West.
West, MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet and a junior Foreign Office minister until she was sacked in the reshuffle last year, announced yesterday afternoon that, unless a cabinet minister comes forward to challenge Starmer for the Labour leadership by tomorrow morning, she will do it herself. She would need the support of 81 Labour MPs to trigger a contest; there is no evidence that she has those numbers and (for reasons that are probably a mystery to anyone under the age of 50 – more on that later) she is being described as a stalking horse.
While there may not be 81 Labour MPs who want to see West as party leader, there probably are many more than 81 who want to see Starmer replaced as leader befor the next election. Almost 40, by one count, have been going public since the elections on Thursday saying as much. But, in their comments, mostly they have been adopting the same line as St Augustine took on chastity; ‘Lord, give me a Labour leadership contest, but not yet.’
Why? Some of them have been saying Starmer should be given a chance to show that he can turn things round. But mostly the Labour MPs speaking out are on the soft left of the party and believe Andy Burnham would be the best replacement. They want a commitment from Starmer that he will stand down in the medium term, so that Burnham has time to get elected to parliament first so he can stand as a candidate.
West is trying to speed up the process. This is seen as fatal to Burnham and potentially helpful to Wes Streeting, the health secretary, and Angela Rayner, the former deputy PM, who would probably be the lead candidates in a contest held now. West has dismissed suggestion that she is acting on behalf of someone else. Yesterday she said there was “plenty of talent” in the shadow cabinet capable of providing leadership. Since Thursday, Rayner has not yet commented on the election defeats; Streeting has said he supports Starmer.
The prospect of an early contest explains why some Labour MPs on the soft left are now reviving talk of trying to get Ed Miliband to stand. Here is our story by Peter Walker and Jessica Elgot.
Starmer insists he will not give up without a fight. He has given an interview to the Observer and he told the paper that he was engaged in a “10-year project of renewal” and that his intention was to lead the party into the next general election and serve a full second term.
He said:
I’m not going to walk away from the job I was elected to do in July 2024. I’m not going to plunge the country into chaos.
Here is the agenda for the day.
8.30am: Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, is interviewed on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News. The other guests are: Richard Tice, the Reform UK deputy leader; Rhun ap Iorwerth, the Plaid Cymru leader set to become the next first minister of Wales; James Cleverly, the shadow housing secretary; and Stephen Flynn, who is stepping down as SNP leader at Westminster having been elected to the Scottish parliament.
9.30am: Catherine West, the former Labour minister, is interviewed on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. Phillipson, Tice, ap Iorwerth and Cleverly on on too.
1pm: A rally against antisemitism is happening outside Downing Street organised in support of Britain’s Jewish community.
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More than 11,000 people have signed a petition calling for a review of the exam saying it was “totally unrecognisable” from what they had prepared for.
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EU’s Kallas criticises Putin’s ‘very cynical’ Ukraine ceasefire calls and rejects suggestion of Schröder as mediator – Europe live | Europe
EU’s Kallas criticises Putin’s ‘very cynical’ ceasefire calls, rejects suggestion of Schröder as mediator on Ukraine
EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas earlier was also dismissive of Putin’s “very cynical” calls for a ceasefire “to protect his parade, whereas they were actually still attacking civilians in Ukraine.”
And the former Estonian prime minister, too, was not particularly keen on Schröder as a mediator on Ukraine.
“If we give the right to Russia to appoint a negotiator on our behalf, that would not be very wise.
And second, I think Gerhard Schröder has been the high-level lobbyist for Russian state-owned companies, so it’s clear why Putin wants him to be the person so that actually he would be sitting on both sides of the table.”
Kallas also warned against broader Russian operations in Europe, warning that “clearly, our adversaries are not sleeping; so clearly, they want to increase the influence in Europe.”
“We unfortunately already see this in sports organisations, where, you know, Russians are let to compete like nothing has happened. And there are discussions there. We also saw this Venice Biennale where they are there like nothing has happened. So clearly they are working all the time and we have to be vigilant as well.”
Key events
Evacuated US and French MV Hondius passengers test positive for hantavirus
Angelique Chrisafis in Paris and Sam Jones in Madrid
Meanwhile, a French woman and an American national evacuated from the cruise ship at the centre of a deadly hantavirus outbreak have tested positive for the virus, as the complex operation to repatriate those onboard continued on Monday.
The French woman was one of five French passengers who disembarked from the ship in Tenerife on Sunday before being flown to a hospital in Paris.
The French health minister, Stéphanie Rist, said the woman was in a serious condition on Monday.
Rist said the woman had started to feel very unwell on Sunday night and “tests came back positive”. Rist told France Inter radio: “Unfortunately, her symptoms worsened overnight.” She is being treated in a specialised infectious diseases unit of a hospital in Paris.
Personnel in full-body protective gear and breathing masks began escorting the travellers from ship to shore in Tenerife in the Canary Islands on Sunday, in an effort that was continuing on Monday. More than 100 people of 23 nationalities are being evacuated in less than 48 hours, in an operation described by Spanish authorities as “complex” and “unprecedented”.
Spain’s health ministry said on Monday that “all possible measures had been adopted from the start in order to cut possible chains of transmission”, adding that passengers underwent a health check and had their temperatures taken when the ship arrived off Tenerife on Sunday.
It also said the French woman who had developed a fever on the evacuation flight had not had a high temperature when she was examined onboard the MV Hondius.
‘Extremisms and violence carry consequences,’ EU foreign policy chief says as EU adopts sanctions on Israeli settlers
Let’s bring you a bit more on the long-stalled sanctions on Israeli settlers, which – as expected (10:04) – have now been approved after the change of government in Hungary.
French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot was the first to break the news (14:49), but we now also heard from the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who said:
“EU Foreign Ministers just gave the go-ahead to sanction Israeli settlers over violence against Palestinians. They also agreed new sanctions on leading Hamas figures. It was high time we move from deadlock to delivery. Extremisms and violence carry consequences.”
But Israel has already condemned the move, saying it was adopted in “an arbitrary and political manner.”
“Equally outrageous is the unacceptable comparison the European Union has chosen to make between Israeli citizens and Hamas terrorists. This is a completely distorted moral equivalence.”
“Israel has stood, stands, and will continue to stand for the right of Jews to settle in the heart of our homeland,” foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar said on X.
Kallas will be speaking at a press conference following the ministerial meeting in the next half hour and I will bring you the key lines here.
‘Impossible to speak about culture’ in this noise, Macron tells off attendees at Africa summit
Here we have a clip of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, playing school teacher and asking attendees to quieten down at a youth-focused session at the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, interrupting the event as speakers addressed the audience.
“I’m sorry guys, it’s impossible to speak about culture, to have people like that, super-inspired, coming here and making a speech with such noise,” he said.
This is a total lack of respect.
A Swiss crew member of the cruise ship hit by an outbreak of Hantavirus is in quarantine in the Netherlands, and a Swiss national is self-isolating in Switzerland, the Swiss authorities said on Monday.
The cases are in addition to that of a Swiss man who travelled on the cruise who tested positive for the Andes strain of the Hantavirus infection, a spokesperson for home affairs and public health said.
He is now being treated at a hospital in Zurich, and his wife is self-isolating, according to Swiss authorities.
A French woman and an American national evacuated from the cruise ship at the centre of a deadly hantavirus outbreak have tested positive for the virus, as the complex operation to repatriate those onboard continued on Monday.
You can read our earlier report here:
European Union foreign ministers reached a political agreement on Monday on new sanctions targeting violent Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.
“It’s done. The European Union is sanctioning today the main Israeli organisations guilty of supporting the extremist and violent colonisation of the West Bank, as well as their leaders,” French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot wrote on social media.
A little bit more context to our earlier news that the European Union has imposed sanctions on 16 individuals and seven entities in Russia for systematic unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children.
On Monday, prior the announcement the EU hosted, alongside Canada, a meeting of the 47-country International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children to increase diplomatic pressure on Russia and rally support for work to verify and trace those who are taken.
“War has really many faces, but stealing the children is really one of the most horrific,” EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said ahead of the gathering. “We should stop this, and Russia should pay.”
The officials targeted by Monday’s sanctions include the heads of children’s camps, government representatives and military officers in charge of youth training.
One of the 16 named was Lilya Shvetsova, head of the “Red Carnation” camp in occupied Crimea. The EU said she supervised “activities aimed at shaping the political and ideological views of children present at the facility, including Ukrainian children.”
Like others on the list, she was determined to be “supporting and implementing actions and policies contributing to the deportation, forced transfer, forced assimilation, including indoctrination, or militarized education of Ukrainian minors.”
EU leaders dismisses suggestions Schröder could help mediate between Russia and Europe
Pjotr Sauer
Russian affairs reporter
The EU on Monday dismissed Vladimir Putin’s suggestion that the Kremlin-friendly former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder could serve as a European mediator in peace talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.
Over the weekend, the Russian leader put forward Schröder – a longtime ally – as a possible figure to help restart talks with Europe, saying he would “personally” favour the former German leader for the role.
Schröder, 82, previously held senior positions in Russian energy projects, including work on the Nord Stream gas pipelines and a seat on the board of Russian oil company Rosneft.
He stepped down from the role several months after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine under mounting pressure, but has never explicitly condemned Putin over the invasion.
Putin’s surprise pitch comes as the Russian president suggested the conflict in Ukraine could be drawing to a close – a rare instance in which Putin appeared to hint at a possible timeline for ending the invasion.
But Putin’s top advisers have stressed that the Kremlin continues to demand that Ukraine withdraw its troops from the eastern Donbas region as a precondition for future negotiations.
The Russian president remains determined to seize the remaining parts of the region by force this year before any serious talks begin, people familiar with his thinking told the Guardian.
EU sanctions 16 individuals, 7 entities over unlawful deportation, forced transfer of Ukrainian children
Meanwhile, the European Union has imposed sanctions on 16 individuals and seven entities in Russia for systematic unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children.
It is estimated that Russia “have deported and forcibly transferred nearly 20 500 Ukrainian children,” the statement said.
In a statement, the council said the decision “targets those responsible for the systematic unlawful deportation, forced transfer, forced assimilation, including indoctrination and militarised education, of Ukrainian minors, as well as their unlawful adoption and removal to the Russian Federation.”
The sanctioned entities include “federal state institutions” from Russia and officials and politicians from territories occupied by Russia.
“Those listed today are subject to an asset freeze, and EU citizens and companies are forbidden from making funds, financial assets or economic resources available to them. Natural persons are additionally subject to a travel ban that prohibits them from entering or transiting through EU territories.”
The move comes just hours before a separate discussion on the issue of Ukrainian children this afternoon.
Putin’s Ukraine hints could be attempt to distract critics from Russia’s weaknesses, Germany’s defence minister says
Back to Vladimir Putin’s suggestions of ending his aggression on Ukraine, German defence minister Boris Pistorius said it could be another deception while the Russian president tries to distract from his country’s own weakness, Reuters reported.
Putin could end the war himself if he wanted to, Pistorius said.
“And there’s always the fear – I hope I’m wrong – that this is yet another deception, but it can’t be ruled out.”
“I believe that Putin is ultimately trying to distract from his own weakness with this approach. He can currently point to hardly any territorial gains, and his army keeps losing parts of conquered territory,” he added.
EU in talks with US artificial intelligence giants over their AI models
Elsewhere, the European Commission is in ongoing discussions with US artificial intelligence giants OpenAI and Anthropic about the operation of their models, a spokesperson said at the midday briefing, Reuters reported.
Spokesperson Thomas Regnier said the commission welcomed OpenAI’s proactive engagement, including its intent to grant access to its new AI model.
He added that the Commission has had a four or five meetings with Anthropic though no discussions on a possible access to its AI models have taken place yet.
“With one (OpenAI), you have a company proactively offering to give access to the company. With the other one (Anthropic), we have good exchanges though we’re not at a stage where we can speculate on potential access or not“, Regnier said.
Poland investigates how wanted fugitive former minister left Hungary for US
Jakub Krupa
Meanwhile, Poland’s former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, wanted by Polish authorities with allegations of over 20 criminal charges, moved to the US over the weekend, leaving Hungary where he held political asylum granted by the previous government of Viktor Orbán.
Ziobro was one of the most prominent faces of the PiS government and played a central role in its controversial judiciary reforms, which critics say undermined the rule of law and the independence of courts, leading to prolonged conflict with the EU.
He is being investigated on 26 charges, with prosecutors alleging that he ran a criminal group and abused his position through the misuse of resources from a fund designed to help victims of crime. He denies the allegations, and claimed asylum in Hungary in January.
His move to leave Budapest coincides with the inauguration of the new pro-European government of Péter Magyar, who publicly said he would revoke the previous government’s decision to grant him protection and extradite the minister back to Poland.
Ziobro confirmed his whereabouts in an interview with the right-wing broadcaster Republika TV which also announced him as their “political commentator” based in the US.
“I am in the United States, I arrived yesterday,” he said, adding the US was “an extremely complex, beautiful country, the strongest democracy in the world,” and Poland’s “ally, the guarantor of Poland’s security.”
Ziobro had his Polish passports revoked last year as part of the investigation into 26 alleged abuses of power, but given his asylum status in Hungary, he was given an international refugee passport.
“These are well-known procedures associated with granting a citizen the right of asylum, [when] one also uses appropriate documents that allow them to move around the world. I have had such a document all the time and I used it effectively,” he told Republika.
The so-called Geneva passport, however, would require a visa to enter the US, raising questions over whether the broadcaster, with close links to Donald Trump and the US Republicans, may have applied for a US visa for the former minister.
Despite being wanted by Poland under domestic law, a follow-up motion to issue a European Arrest Warrant has yet to be decided by courts.
Ziobro insisted that he “will gladly stand before any court, and an … American court is certaintly an independent court.”
“If they want to bring an extradition case, go ahead; as prosecutor general [in the past], I remember my battles in extradition cases involving the US, and it is a demanding procedure,” he said.
The former minister doubled down on his claims that he could not face a fair trial in Poland, implying that Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk would try to politically interfere with his case.
“That’s the advantage of this situation, this American freedom,” he said. “You can fight [in court] on fair terms, before an independent American court, and certainly, if such a moment comes, I will do so and not have a single bit of fear that Donald Tusk will have an influence on the case by handpicking a judge.”
Poland’s deputy foreign minister Marcin Bosacki told journalists on Monday morning that Polish authorities were “clarifying the matter and looking forward to serious talks with our American partners on how did Zbigniew Ziobro end up in the United States?”
“We very much hope that this matter will not cast a shadow over … traditionally good bilateral relations between Poland and America,” he said.
Bosacki revealed that “not so long ago the American ambassador assured us that the United States had no intention of hosting Zbigniew Ziobro on its territory.”
Separately, Poland’s public prosecutor’s office said it was investigating the circumstances surrounding his travel to the US to determine if anyone helped him to “flee and evade criminal responsibility, thereby obstructing the investigation” into alleged irregularities.
“Everything suggests the suspect, Zbigniew Ziobro, has chosen to continue evading the Polish justice system,” the prosecutor’s office’s spokesperson, Przemysław Nowak, told a press conference.
“Zbigniew Ziobro has not had a passport for many months, so one thing is certain: [he] certainly did not enter the United States under general rules,” Nowak said.
He also said the prosecutors will ask the US to clarify if Ziobro or his deputy, Marcin Romanowski, who also claimed asylum in Budapest but reportedly left over the weekend, were granted US visas.
If the US confirmed it granted Ziobro a visa, prosecutors would seek to request extradition from the US, he said, but warned that it would likely be an extremely complex “and often difficult” procedure and could take even “years”.
“The extradition procedure with the United States is usually lengthy and is not an easy procedure. I am speaking of … ‘a standard’ extradition, when it concerns non-media proceedings and persons … on standard terms. Well, there is a suspicion that perhaps in this case we have certain non-standard rules for crossing the border by the suspect,” he said.
(Amazingly, Nowak said the extradition process was last updated in 2006, when Ziobro was… the justice minister.)
‘Schröder won’t be representing Europe,’ Estonian foreign minister insists
Estonian foreign minister Margus Tsahkna also dismissed Putin’s suggestion that former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder could coordinate talks with the European Union to secure a peace deal in Ukraine.
“Gerhard Schröder is a Putin idea. I think they are very close. Gerhard Schröder won’t be representing Europe,” said Tsahkna, as he arrived for an EU meeting in Brussels.
EU’s Kallas criticises Putin’s ‘very cynical’ ceasefire calls, rejects suggestion of Schröder as mediator on Ukraine
EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas earlier was also dismissive of Putin’s “very cynical” calls for a ceasefire “to protect his parade, whereas they were actually still attacking civilians in Ukraine.”
And the former Estonian prime minister, too, was not particularly keen on Schröder as a mediator on Ukraine.
“If we give the right to Russia to appoint a negotiator on our behalf, that would not be very wise.
And second, I think Gerhard Schröder has been the high-level lobbyist for Russian state-owned companies, so it’s clear why Putin wants him to be the person so that actually he would be sitting on both sides of the table.”
Kallas also warned against broader Russian operations in Europe, warning that “clearly, our adversaries are not sleeping; so clearly, they want to increase the influence in Europe.”
“We unfortunately already see this in sports organisations, where, you know, Russians are let to compete like nothing has happened. And there are discussions there. We also saw this Venice Biennale where they are there like nothing has happened. So clearly they are working all the time and we have to be vigilant as well.”
Germany shots down idea of ex chancellor Schröder as Russia’s mediator on Ukraine
German Europe minister Gunther Krichbaum has just shot down Vladimir Putin’s suggestion that former pro-Russian German chancellor Gerhard Schröder could act as a mediator on Ukraine.
Schröder, 82, has remained close to Putin long after leaving office, standing apart from most western leaders since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
He previously held key roles in Russian energy projects, including work on the Nord Stream gas pipelines and a seat on the board of Russian oil firm Rosneft, which he gave up in 2022.
On Saturday, Putin said he thinks the Ukraine war is winding down and suggested Schröder as a potential key negotiator to help end the conflict.
Speaking to reporters in Brussels, Krichbaum said:
“As you know, a mediator must be accepted by both sides, and this seems to be noticeably lacking here.”
He said that Schröder “has not necessarily demonstrated in the past that he could act as a neutral mediator, as an honest broker, so to speak,” as he was “heavily influenced” by Putin.
“Close friendships may be legitimate everywhere in the world, but they do not contribute to being perceived as an honest mediating partner.”
With the new government now formally in place in Hungary, the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas also hopes to finally move on new sanctions on Israeli settlers, which had been stalled by former Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán.
“I expect political agreement on the sanctions on violent settlers, hopefully we will get there,” Kallas told reporters.
Morning opening: ‘New momentum’ gives Europe hope on Ukraine
Jakub Krupa
EU foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels this morning to discuss the latest on Ukraine, the Middle East, and the western Balkans.
The talks will focus on the situation in Ukraine, with Kyiv’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha hailing “a new feeling of momentum” as he arrived for discussions this morning.
“We have a new reality on the battlefield. Ukraine became stronger after the most difficult winter. … We stabilised the front and we are also in the position that we closed the sky … [can] shoot down up to 90% of aerial objects by which Russians attack us.”
Somewhat mysteriously, he also added:
“We noticed new some very interesting developments in Russia, not only in the economy. So we are following them.”
But there appears to be very little appetite to take seriously Putin’s claims that the war in Ukraine could be coming to an end, with several leaders saying it was probably the latest of his attempts to deceive European leaders about his intentions.
Latvia’s foreign minister Baiba Braže summed it up best:
“We believe that when we see it in action. For now, even during the so-called ceasefire that he begged for, we have not really seen the cessation of hostilities. So, it’s premature to, to really suggest something like that.”
Sweden’s Maria Malmer Stenergard also acknowledged the changing circumstances in Ukraine, saying it’s clear that Russia is getting weaker.
“It’s difficult for them to recruit soldiers, and we saw the[ir] ‘big victory parade’ that was a very small victory parade, and there was no military hardware display at all, because the Kremlin was afraid of Ukrainian drones.”
There is also lots of Ukraine-related meetings happening elsewhere, with Sybiha going to attend talks at Nato and a separate forum on Ukrainian children abducted by Russia. Germany’s defence minister Boris Pistorius is also expected in Kyiv.
Separately, the EU ministers will also talk about the situation in the Middle East and about the western Balkans.
Elsewhere, I will be also keeping an eye on the latest lines about the virus-hit cruise ship in Tenerife, and other developments across the continent.
I will bring you all the key lines here.
It’s Monday, 11 May 2026, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.
Was the prime minister’s speech enough to avert a challenge to his leadership less than two years after he won a landslide general election victory?
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