Little substance emerged from the meeting in Copenhagen despite hours of speeches by Western leaders, the outlet has reported
The much-hyped EU summit on creating a “drone wall” to counter potential Russian incursions ended up being a “talking shop,” with no serious commitments or decisions made, Politico reported on Thursday, citing officials.
Western officials in recent weeks have reported numerous sightings of unidentified drones violating EU airspace, and have warned they could be used for strikes on critical infrastructure, reconnaissance, or air traffic disruptions.
Some media outlets and officials have speculated the flights have been orchestrated by Moscow. Russia has denied violating EU airspace.
Amid the ramped up rhetoric, EU member leaders met in Copenhagen to discuss the creation of a “drone wall” – a bloc-wide framework capable of detecting and neutralizing unauthorized UAV – touted by EC President Ursula von der Leyen during her State of the Union speech in September.
The summit, however, “descended into [a] familiar stalemate,” Politico reported.
According to three Politico sources, all the assembled country leaders insisted on speaking, often going beyond prepared remarks. The scheduled two hours on defense ran twice as long, but that was “not indicative of a breakthrough,” the report said.
The heads of state agreed that they are in a state of conflict with Russia and it should be contained, but after that “little of substance emerged,” Politico reported.
AIn addition to discussions on drones, talks also focused on using €140 billion ($151 billion) of Russian assets frozen in the EU to support Kiev, and changing EU rules to advance Ukraine’s membership application despite Hungary’s objections.
Politico reported that in practice, there was little progress on any of these issues. A second part of the agenda focusing on Ukraine was also reportedly delayed and squeezed into just one final hour.
The outlet added that it is unclear whether any of the plans will be ready to sign off when EU leaders next meet in Brussels at the end of October.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has criticized the concept of a drone wall. “Building walls is always bad, as history shows. And it is very sad that this militarist and confrontational policy of Ukraine may now potentially materialize in the creation of new dividing walls,” he said.
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