France and Germany proposed on Wednesday an EU summit with Putin to try to improve relations, potentially paving the way for the first such meeting since 2014.

A distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council, a former assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs during the Obama and George W. Bush administrations, Daniel Fried told the Accent that “if the European powers and the EU maintain their principled position (most recently expressed in the EU Commission/EEAS 16 June paper, “Push back, constrain, engage,”) dialogue with Moscow can have value.”

“They need to take a lesson from Biden’s solid combination of toughness, realism about Putin, support for democracy in Russia, and willingness on that basis to engage with Putin in areas of common interest. They Europeans should not suggest that they seek a “reset” with Russia without any Russian steps to address its aggression and repression that has created the current tensions,” Daniel Fried said.