Oct. 20 (UPI) — President Joe Biden will meet with European Union leaders at the White House Friday to discuss funding for the war in Ukraine as the conflict in the Middle East approached its second full week.
The high-stakes meeting with European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen is part of the 27th summit between the United States and the EU, and is the second of its kind since Biden took office.
The sit-down was scheduled to get underway at 12 p.m. EDT in the White House Cabinet Room.
The leaders plan to discuss ways to expand their cooperation on clean energy, global supply chains, economic and digital security, artificial intelligence, but the talks were expected to primarily focus on how to boost support for Ukraine amid the ongoing Russian invasion.
Ahead of the meeting, Michel and von der Leyen issued a joint statement, touting the triad’s “shared commitment to support Ukraine as it defends its sovereignty and to impose costs on Russia for its aggression.”
The meeting comes at a critical time — when Ukraine was seeking new funding for the war after the U.S. Congress passed a stopgap spending bill that omitted any further assistance to Ukraine due to stout opposition from GOP hardliners.
On Oct. 2, foreign ministers from the European Union gathered in Kyiv to discuss how the bloc could provide more military assistance to Ukraine while seeking inroads with U.S. lawmakers to continue supporting Ukraine’s defense, which Biden called critical to the future of democracy worldwide.
The meeting took place the same week as the surprise attack on Israel by the militant group Hamas, triggering another major global conflict that put pressure on the White House to show support for two key allies.
Faced with simultaneous crises, Biden addressed the nation Thursday night from the Oval Office, announcing his plan to ask Congress for tens of billions of dollars in new assistance to help both Ukraine and Israel.
“History has taught us that when terrorists don’t pay a price for their terror, when dictators don’t pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction,” Biden said while seated at the Resolute Desk. “They keep going. And the cost and the threats to America and the world keep rising.”
At the last transatlantic conference in June 2021, the leaders endorsed an outline for EU-U.S. cooperation in the post-pandemic era.
