Slovenian president says EU needs "silent dialogue" with Russia

Slovenian President Nataša Pirc Musar believes that the European Union should resume some form of dialogue with Russia – at least through quiet diplomacy conducted by a designated team.

As reported by Politico, the Slovenian president called it a mistake that the EU stopped communicating with Russia after the start of the full-scale war and believes that this should be resumed.

"One of the mistakes of [the] European Union was that we stopped communicating with Russia," she said. The EU should nominate a group of "wise men and women" to initiate "silent" diplomacy with Russia as a first step towards direct dialogue, she added.

Nataša Pirc Musar believes that Europe needs to focus on being included in negotiations with the US, Russia and Ukraine and that "dialogue, dialogue, dialogue" is needed, despite the fact that the US-initiated talks have not yet yielded results.

Pirc Musar said that she raised these issues in a conversation with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and that she said they were working on it.

In addition, she said in an interview that increased defence spending should not affect the social sphere.

Nataša Pirc Musar visited Ukraine in June 2024. At that time, she stated that Ukraine should decide for itself when and on what terms to enter into negotiations with Russia.