EU Diplomats Engage with Peace Board Director to Discuss Gaza’s Path Forward

BRUSSELS – European Union’s leading diplomats are scheduled to convene in Brussels on Monday with the head of the Board of Peace. This meeting follows a contentious alignment with U.S. President Donald Trump’s initiatives aimed at stabilizing and reconstructing the conflict-torn Gaza Strip.

Nikolay Mladenov, an ex-Bulgarian politician and seasoned U.N. diplomat appointed by Trump to oversee the Board of Peace, will engage with the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, along with foreign ministers from the 27-member union. In addition to the situation in Gaza, discussions are anticipated to cover the ongoing war in Ukraine and potential new sanctions against Russia.

Situated just a stone’s throw from the Middle East, the EU maintains strong ties with both Israel and the Palestinians. The union has a pivotal role in supervising the Rafah border crossing and stands as the major financial contributor to the Palestinian Authority.

The decision to collaborate with the Trump-led board has sparked a divide among EU countries, from Nicosia to Copenhagen. Despite this, the EU remains a staunch supporter of the United Nations’ mission in Gaza.

Among the board’s full members are EU nations Hungary and Bulgaria, alongside EU candidate countries such as Turkey, Kosovo, and Albania.

Twelve other EU nations sent observers to the inaugural meeting in Washington on Thursday: Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. The EU flag was displayed at the event alongside EU observer and member nations.

European leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen turned down invitation to join, as did Pope Leo XIV. But von der Leyen did send European Commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Šuica to the meeting in Washington as an observer.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said sending Šuica without consulting the European Council, the group of the bloc’s leaders, broke EU regulations.

“The European Commission should never have attended the Board of Peace meeting in Washington,” Barrot said in a post on X. “Beyond the legitimate political questions raised by the ‘Board of Peace,’ the Commission must scrupulously respect European law and institutional balance in all circumstances.”

“It is in the remit of the Commission to accept invitations,” von der Leyen spokesperson Paula Pinho said Friday.

While the executive is not joining the board, it is seeking to influence reconstruction and peacekeeping in Gaza beyond being the top donor to the Palestinian Authority, she said.

Trump’s ballooning ambitions for the board extend from governing and rebuilding Gaza as a futuristic metropolis to challenging the U.N. Security Council’s role in solving conflicts. But they could be tempered by the realities of dealing with Gaza, where there has so far been limited progress in achieving the narrower aims of the ceasefire.