European summit opens in Moldova with Ukraine war, regional conflicts on agenda
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has arrived at a sprawling summit of some 50 European leaders in Moldova, becoming the focal point of an event that seeks to quell regional conflicts and shore up unity in the face of Russia’s war
BULBOACA, Moldova (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived at a sprawling summit of some 50 European leaders in Moldova on Thursday, becoming the focal point of an event that seeks to quell regional conflicts and shore up unity in the face of Russia’s war.
The meeting of the European Political Community, a pan-continental gathering of heads of state and government from 47 countries, brings together leaders from European Union nations and others to the 27-member bloc's south and east — a region pushed to a turning point in its relationship with Moscow by Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year.
The EU, represented at the summit by the bloc's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel, wants to use the summit to reach out to many Eastern European countries that spent decades either within the Soviet Union or under its immediate sphere of influence, and to bolster the continent’s unified response to Russian aggression.
The choice to hold the summit in Moldova, a former Soviet republic of around 2.6 million people, is seen as a message to the Kremlin both from the EU and the pro-Western Moldovan government, which received EU candidate status in June of last year at the same time as Ukraine.
