European leaders discuss migration and Ukraine at a UK summit as concern grows about direction of US

WOODSTOCK, England -- Leaders from across Europe expressed support for Ukraine and concern about the direction of the United States on Thursday at a security-focused summit clouded by worries about whether the U.S. will remain a reliable ally if Donald Trump wins a second presidency.

Newly elected U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed around 45 heads of government to a grandiose English country mansion to discuss migration, energy security and the threat from Russia as he seeks to restore relations between the U.K. and its European Union neighbors four years after their acrimonious divorce.

The venue for the European Political Community meeting, Blenheim Palace, was the birthplace of Britain's World War II Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Starmer said the leaders were gathering “as a new storm gathers over our continent.”

"Our first task here today is to confirm our steadfast support for Ukraine, to unite once again behind those values that we cherish and to say we will face down aggression on this continent together,” Starmer said, adding that the threat from Russia “reaches right across Europe.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was a key guest at the meeting, aimed at shoring up Europe’s support for his country’s defense and discussing ways to defend democracy. The U.K. accuses Moscow of seeking to undermine European democracies with cyberattacks, disinformation and sabotage.

Others making the trip to Blenheim Palace, a Baroque country mansion 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of London, included German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stayed away as she fought to secure a second term from lawmakers in the European Parliament, which she received as the summit was underway.

A brainchild of Macron, the EPC was established in 2022 as a forum for countries both inside and outside the 27-nation EU after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine shattered Europe’s sense of security. The next three summits are due to be held in Hungary, Albania and Denmark.

Starmer’s center-left government aims to rebuild ties with the EU strained by years of ill-tempered wrangling over Brexit divorce terms. A key priority is a new U.K.-EU security pact that Starmer hopes to strike soon.

“We are confident that a new chapter will be opened with the U.K.,” European Council President Charles Michel said as he arrived.

Starmer said that the U.K. plans to take a more active role on the world stage, especially when it comes to Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion and to people-smuggling gangs organizing irregular migration.

He told fellow leaders that under his government, the U.K. would be “a friend and a partner, ready to work with you — not part of the European Union, but very much part of Europe."

He promised “we will never withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights” — something the previous Conservative U.K. government had flirted with, to the alarm of the U.K.'s European allies.

The U.K. plans to work more closely with the European police agency Europol against people smuggling, part of measures to beef up border security following Starmer’s decision to scrap the Conservatives’ contentious and unrealized plan to send migrants arriving in the U.K. by boat on a one-way trip to Rwanda.

Starmer called the Rwanda plan a “gimmick” and urged European nations to cooperate against “the vile trade of people smuggling."

“Let’s be frank -- ‘challenge’ is the wrong word,” he said. “It is now, I think, a crisis. We must combine our resources, share intelligence, share tactics, shut down the smuggling routes and smash the gangs.”

Starmer will hold a dinner for Macron on Thursday evening, where the two men will discuss what more can be done to stop thousands of migrants each year making hazardous journeys across the English Channel from France.

At the end of the daylong summit, Starmer said there had been broad agreement on “gripping the migration crisis,” but acknowledged it would take time.

"Two weeks ago today we were still knocking on doors asking people to vote for us. We can’t turn it around that quickly," he told a news conference.

When Britain agreed earlier this year to hold the one-day summit, Conservative leader Rishi Sunak was prime minister. His defeat in a July 4 election meant that it was Starmer who welcomed leaders to Blenheim Palace — a key getting-to-know-you moment for him.

Delegates were treated to full British hospitality — including strawberries with cream and a reception hosted by King Charles III — and mingled informally in a “leaders' lounge” and the palace's ornate gardens.

Many thoughts strayed to the U.S., where the weekend assassination attempt on Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, underscored how febrile and polarized politics has become before the Nov. 5 election.

Trump’s skepticism about NATO has long worried U.S. allies. Trump’s choice of Sen. JD Vance, an opponent of U.S. military aid to Ukraine, as vice presidential running mate has heightened concerns.

Politicians and officials at the summit stressed the need for Europe to show it was taking steps to protect its own security.

“European countries must stand on their own legs more than ever,” Netherlands Prime Minister Dick Schoof said.

That sentiment was echoed by several other leaders, but not by Hungary's pro-Russia Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has riled other EU nations with a series of rogue meetings with foreign leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, about Ukraine.

Orbán said a Trump victory would be “the best news for everybody, because he's a man of the people.”

Zelenskyy appeared to refer to Orbán when he urged European nations to remain united.

“If someone wants to make some trips to the capital of war to talk and perhaps promise something against our common interests, or to the expense of Ukraine or other countries, then why should we consider such a person?” Zelenskyy said. "The EU and NATO can also address all their issues without this one individual.”

___

Sylvain Plazy contributed to this story from Brussels.