Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced on Thursday (December 11, 2025) that Berlin may host a meeting next week that could also include Washington, after the US government received a counter-proposal to the 20-point peace plan for Ukraine promoted by the Donald Trump administration the day before.
“We suggested to Trump that we have final talks with the US government about the (peace) documents at the weekend,” Merz said at a press conference in Berlin with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, alluding to the conversation he had on Wednesday with the US leader and his counterparts from France and Great Britain.
The Chancellor confirmed that the USA had received a proposal for a peace plan this Wednesday, which Trump was not yet aware of at the time of the conversation.
“The main issue is the question of what territorial concessions Ukraine is prepared to make, but that is a question that the Ukrainian president and the Ukrainian people must answer, and we also made that clear to Trump,” he explained.
Possible talks this weekend with the US government
Merz emphasized that there will be talks with the US government at the weekend if the process goes the way the Europeans want.
“And then there will possibly be a meeting here in Berlin at the beginning of next week. Whether the US government takes part or not depends largely on the joint preparation of the documents that are currently being worked on. I am quite optimistic that we can get that done.”
The Chancellor said that after the conversation with Trump he had the impression that he was ready to move forward on this path because he knew that European interests had to be taken into account, but at the same time he spoke of a very “constructive” call.
Trump, for his part, said this Wednesday that European leaders “want us to go to a meeting in Europe this weekend and that we will make a decision depending on what they tell us,” said the Republican.
When asked whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would also take part in this meeting, the president said that the meeting would take place “with Zelensky and us.”
Kiev, supported by European heads of state and government, has been negotiating with the US for weeks on a new version of the original 28-point document proposed by Washington, which contained several of the Kremlin’s maximum demands for peace in Ukraine.
CP (efe, rtr)
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