PPCC: Pisitófilos Creditófagos. Veranito 2025

[Elcasco]

https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/home-prices-below-asking-cotality/

More Than Half of Homes Are Selling Below Asking Price

More than half of all homes are selling for less than their asking price, as buyers gain leverage in a weaker housing market, according to a new report.

In May, total home sales were down 15% from a year ago as the national median list price held at $495,000 and mortgage rates hovered close to 7%, according to a new analysis from real estate analytics firm Cotality.

Faced with a shrinking buyer pool, sellers are beginning to feel pressure to cut prices, with 56% of homes selling below their asking price in May, the report found.

The median closing price for that month came in $45,000 lower than the typical list price, according to Cotality, signaling greater pressure on sellers to make concessions.

Despite the modest price relief, homebuyers need $200,000 more to buy the median-priced home than they would have needed 10 years ago, a burden that is keeping many buyers on the sidelines.

"Savvy buyers are now in a market that is primed for negotiations on price reduction, closing cost assistance, and mortgage rate buydowns,” says Cotality senior economist Daniel Boswell. “However, the tilt toward a buyers’ market is only a bright spot for those who have the means to make a move. For many, systemic hurdles such as interest rates and rising insurance costs remain a barrier to homeownership.”

The dearth of buyers is sending inventory up in many cities, as homes linger longer on the market, with parts of Texas and Florida seeing some of the largest year-over-year increases in inventory.

In Florida, Naples saw the biggest annual decline in home prices, which fell 15%, as sales dropped 29% and inventory rose 58%, according to Cotality.

Miami witnessed the biggest annual decline in sales, which fell 37%. But prices remained surprisingly resilient in Miami, up 7% from a year ago to a median price of $580,000, according to Cotality.

Inventory rose at the highest rate in Toledo, OH, where the number of for-sale homes jumped 128% from a year earlier. Savannah, GA, recorded a 108% increase.

Out of the 25 markets where inventory is rising the quickest, the number of home sales fell annually in all but three: Los Angeles; Lancaster, PA; and Boise, ID.

Homes for sale

There are now over 1.1 million homes for sale nationwide—the third consecutive month with over 1 million listings, according to the Realtor.com® July 2025 Monthly Housing Market Trends Report.

The amount of time homes are listed is rising, too. The typical home spent 58 days on the market—seven days longer than the same time last year.

It's the 16th consecutive month of homes taking longer to sell on a year-over-year basis, according to the Realtor.com report.

Meanwhile, sellers taking their homes off the market is on the rise. Delistings in June 2025 were up 38% year to date and 48% year over year, according to Realtor.com economists.

"This points to sellers anchored to peak-era price expectations and willing to wait rather than negotiate," says Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale.

[R.G.C.I.M.]

Si alguien ha leído mi mensaje anterior, ha sido un gran fallo mío. No hay nada de eso. Perdón. No he comprobado antes de escribir.

Lo he borrado.
Sds

[sudden and sharp]

Es la foto!…como diría alguno.

Sin duda.

El jersey está a la venta por 100$

Se lo pueden meter por el futbolín.

[senslev]

https://peterturchin.substack.com/p/cliodynamics-and-cybernetics-ii

https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/the-rage-of-the-ai-guy

[Fomento Cemento]

Ahora resulta que van a ir en grupito a visitar a Trump. El payaso de Kiev, von der Pony, el enano del Elíseo y no sé quién más...

Menuda panda de perdedores.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crm4ln2ekg1o

European leaders to join Zelensky at White House meeting with Trump

19 minutes ago
George Wright
BBC News

European leaders have said they will join Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at his meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday.

Those travelling include UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

It comes after Trump failed to reach a deal on ending the war in Ukraine during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.

The US president has since said he wants to bypass securing a ceasefire in Ukraine in favour of a permanent peace agreement.

Securing a ceasefire in Ukraine had been one of Trump's core demands before meeting Putin, but afterwards posted on social media that they "often times do not hold up" and that it would be better "to go directly to a peace agreement".

European leaders have reacted with caution to the outcome of the Trump-Putin meeting, seeking not to criticise the change of direction despite their long-held support for a ceasefire.

Putin reportedly presented Trump with a peace offer that would require Ukraine withdrawing from the Donetsk region of the Donbas, in return for Russia freezing the front lines in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

Russia claims the Donbas as Russian territory, controlling most of Luhansk and about 70% of Donetsk. It also illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014, eight years before launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The BBC's US partner CBS has reported, citing diplomatic sources, that European officials were concerned Trump may try to pressure Zelensky into agreeing to the possible terms discussed in Alaska when they meet on Monday.

Ukraine's president has previously ruled out ceding control of the Donbas - composed of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions - saying it could be used as a springboard for future Russian attacks.

Downing Street said in a statement that it "follows the Prime Minister commending President Trump's efforts to end Russia's illegal war in Ukraine, reasserting his position that the path to peace cannot be decided without President Zelensky".

Monday's White House meeting will be Zelensky's first since an acrimonious public exchange in the Oval Office in February, when Trump told him to be more "thankful" for US support and accused him of "gambling with World War Three" in front of the world's media.

In unprecedented scenes, Zelensky was told to leave the White House, but European leaders have since worked to repair the relationship.

The two leaders appeared to reconcile in April, in what the White House described as a "very productive" 15-minute meeting on the sidelines of Pope Francis's funeral.

Ukraine has also signed a minerals deal that gave the US a financial stake in the country, and Kyiv made it clear they were willing to pay for US arms.

But there will have been concern in Kyiv and other European capitals following the Trump-Putin meeting on Friday.

The Russian president, who is facing an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for alleged war crimes in Ukraine, stepped off his jet and onto a red carpet to be warmly received by Trump, who later said they had a "fantastic relationship".

[Derby]

https://www.elconfidencial.com/empresas/2025-08-16/santander-bbva-hipotecas-guerra-comercial-euribor_4191268/

GUERRA COMERCIAL DEL RESTO
BBVA y Santander echan el freno en hipotecas: la rentabilidad no les compensa el riesgo

La ofensiva comercial en hipotecas de varios bancos deja a Santander y a BBVA fuera de esta lucha por captar negocio y asumen una pérdida de cuota de mercado


Oferta de hipoteca de una entidad bancaria. (EFE/ J.L. Cereijido)

Las hipotecas se han convertido en uno de los principales campos de batalla de la banca. La recuperación de la demanda, según ha bajado el euríbor, ha disparado la competencia. Pero Santander y BBVA se han echado a un lado para no participar en esta guerra comercial.

Los dos bancos están perdiendo cuota de mercado y lo asumen. Tanto el consejero delegado del Santander, Héctor Grisi, como el de BBVA, Onur Genç, han admitido que es un momento para reducir presencia en el mercado hipotecario: “Se están dando préstamos a precios a los que no queremos participar”, han dicho ambos en las últimas presentaciones.

Y así lo atestiguan los números. Las nuevas operaciones en hipotecas promediaron un tipo del 2,68% en junio, frente al 2,9% de diciembre o al 3,37% de junio del año anterior. La reducción del euríbor ha llevado a un recorte del precio, pero también está disminuyendo el margen entre el tipo medio de las hipotecas y el indicador de referencia. Según fuentes financieras, hay operaciones a tipo fijo que se acercan al euríbor, por debajo del 2,5%, lo que hace difícil rentabilizar el préstamo para el banco, teniendo en cuenta el consumo de capital.

La tesis de muchas entidades es que quieren captar clientes que estarán fidelizados durante el periodo que dure la hipoteca y, aunque esta apenas genere rentabilidad, confían en generar ingresos extra con préstamos al consumo preconcedidos o ventas de fondos, seguros u otros productos de inversión. Y si son clientes con más de 500.000 euros, se les asigna banca privada para explotar esta vía de ingresos. Las nuevas tecnologías están facilitando que los bancos exploren un mayor conocimiento del cliente para afinar la comercialización de productos adicionales.

Pero Santander y BBVA no han entrado en esta guerra. El banco cántabro tiene focos en crecer en segmentos como banca de inversión o banca privada, donde es líder entre la banca española, mientras que BBVA está ganando cuota de mercado en empresas, especialmente en pymes, segmento en el que captó una de cada cuatro en 2024.

En el caso de Santander, la cartera hipotecaria aumentó un 1%, hasta los 59.726 millones, en el primer semestre, con una estrategia que “todavía se ve impactada por amortizaciones anticipadas”, según refleja el informe anual. En BBVA, el incremento es del 0,4%, hasta los 70.624 millones. En el conjunto del mercado, el repunte supera el 2%, según los datos del Banco de España, hasta los 653.606 millones.

Por el contrario, CaixaBank es líder del mercado, con una cuota del 24,5%, que está consiguiendo mantener con agresividad comercial. La entidad catalana incrementó la nueva producción de hipotecas en un 44% interanual en el primer semestre, y el stock de crédito hipotecario en un 2,6%, hasta los 120.317 millones. El grueso de las hipotecas son a tipo fijo.

También en Sabadell, que está orientándose hacia este tipo de préstamos. El banco catalán, que está inmerso en una ofensiva comercial para crecer en todos los segmentos en plena opa hostil de BBVA, incrementó la producción hipotecaria en la primera mitad del año en un 44%, hasta los 3.462 millones. La inversión crediticia viva en hipotecas se situó en 37.665 millones, un 3,3% más que el año anterior.

Bankinter es otro banco que incrementa su cuota de mercado. El reporte de la entidad apunta a un incremento del 30% de la cartera hipotecaria, hasta los 32.825 millones, si bien esto incluye a EVO Banco tras su integración. Aun así, Bankinter también gana cuota.

Por su parte, Unicaja ha perdido cuota de mercado. El banco andaluz ha iniciado en 2025 un plan estratégico a tres años enfocado en crecer, después de haber dejado atrás las luchas internas en su consejo que surgieron con la fusión con Liberbank. Sin embargo, el stock hipotecario cayó entre diciembre y junio un 0,3%, hasta los 29.760 millones. No obstante, la nueva producción aumentó un 25% interanual, hasta los 1.500 millones entre enero y junio, con lo que se espera que recupere cuota en los próximos meses.

Fuera del Ibex, en Ibercaja aumentó la nueva producción un 50% interanual, hasta los 1.232 millones, y la cartera un 1,5% desde diciembre y un 2,7% interanual, hasta los 17.665 millones. En Kutxabank, el incremento del stock fue del 2,6% en el primer semestre respecto a diciembre, hasta los 29.920 millones. Abanca, por su parte, incrementó un 28,4% interanual la nueva producción hasta mayo, según los últimos datos. Es decir, los bancos medianos también arañan cuota.

[Fomento Cemento]

Lo mal que huele esto...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-14/klarna-signs-26-billion-forward-flow-agreement-for-us-loans

Klarna Is Selling Up to $26 Billion of Buy-Now, Pay-Later Loans to Nelnet


By Aisha S Gani
August 14, 2025 at 12:14 PM UTC
Updated on August 14, 2025 at 4:07 PM UTC

- Klarna Group Plc agreed to sell as much as $26 billion of buy-now, pay-later loans to Nelnet Inc.
- Klarna Chief Financial Officer Niclas Neglén said the partnership with Nelnet allows Klarna to "scale a core product responsibly".
- Judd Deppisch, chief investment officer of Nelnet Financial Services, said the partnership "leverages our expertise and financial strength to invest in attractive cash-flowing assets".

Klarna Group Plc agreed to sell as much as $26 billion of buy-now, pay-later loans to Nelnet Inc.

Klarna Chief Financial Officer Niclas Neglén said the partnership with Nelnet allows Klarna to "scale a core product responsibly".

Judd Deppisch, chief investment officer of Nelnet Financial Services, said the partnership "leverages our expertise and financial strength to invest in attractive cash-flowing assets".

Klarna Group Plc agreed to sell as much as $26 billion of buy-now, pay-later loans to the student loan giant Nelnet Inc. as the fintech looks for ways to free up capital ahead of its public debut.

The multi-year deal is structured as a so-called forward-flow agreement, where a buyer agrees to purchase loans before they have been originated. With the deal, Klarna will be able to expand its pay-in-4 product in the US, which allows consumers to split up purchases and pay them off interest free in a matter of weeks.

“This is a landmark transaction for Klarna in the US” Klarna Chief Financial Officer Niclas Neglén said in a statement to Bloomberg. “Our partnership with Nelnet allows us to scale a core product responsibly.”

Klarna, which has a banking license in its home country of Sweden, has been building a platform that allows it to sell streams of loans on an ongoing basis to investors around the world.

Last year, the fintech struck a deal with a subsidiary of Elliott Investment Management that saw the hedge fund agree to buy up £30 billion of Klarna’s UK-originated debt in the coming years. Klarna would continue to service the loans.

The move comes as Klarna is considering reviving its potential New York initial public offering as soon as September, Bloomberg first reported in July, following a recent surge in fintech stock prices and strong debuts of US listings.

Klarna had filed for its IPO with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in March and was going to start marketing its shares to potential investors. However, the company put the plans on hold amid the market turbulence triggered by President Donald Trump’s announcement of wide-ranging tariffs in April, Bloomberg News reported at the time.

Bloomberg is first to report the name of the buyer after Klarna previously announced it had reached a forward-flow agreement when it published second-quarter results earlier on Thursday.

Headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska, Nelnet says its “the largest operating businesses engage in loan servicing and education technology, services, and payment processing.” The company said it makes a “significant” portion of its revenue from net interest income it earns on a portfolio of federally insured student loans.

“This strategic partnership leverages our expertise and financial strength to invest in attractive cash-flowing assets,” Judd Deppisch, chief investment officer of Nelnet Financial Services, said in the statement.

[Derby]

El desamparo se siente como una puñalada trapera.

https://www.ft.com/content/41c271c2-ae38-4a06-9aec-7851db22bb6b

‘Stab in the back’: Kyiv reels as Trump embraces Putin’s terms

Abrupt shift in Washington’s stance triggers alarm and sense of betrayal in Ukrainian capital


Ukrainians in Kyiv protesting before Friday’s meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska © SERGEY DOLZHENKO/EPA/Shutterstock

Donald Trump told Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a call on Wednesday that he would press Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine.

But by Saturday, after rolling out the red carpet for Putin at a high-stakes summit in Alaska, the US president appeared instead to have aligned himself with the Russian leader, echoing the Kremlin’s position and rhetoric.

The shift drew a sharp response from Ukrainian officials, soldiers and civil society, who reacted with frustration and accused Trump of undermining their efforts to bring Russia’s war to a just end.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he wanted to “go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war and not a mere Ceasefire agreement, which often times do not hold up”.

He also suggested the US would not follow through with threats of new sanctions against Russia, signalling a move away from efforts to constrain the Kremlin’s war strategy.

In recent weeks Trump had publicly expressed great frustration with Putin over his intransigence and relentless bombing of civilians. His change of tone caused alarm and a sense of betrayal in Kyiv on Saturday that deepened as details of the meeting emerged.

Putin demanded Ukraine withdraw from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as a condition for ending Russia’s war but told Trump he could freeze the rest of the frontline if his core demands were met, four people familiar with the matter told the Financial Times.

“This is a stab in the back,” a senior Ukrainian official told the FT, describing Trump’s shift.

“He just wants a quick deal,” another senior Ukrainian official said.

Oleksandr Merezhko, chair of the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, summed up the outcome of the Trump-Putin summit for his country in one word: “awful”.

“It looks like Trump has aligned with Putin and they both might be starting to force us to accept a peace treaty, which means in reality capitulation of Ukraine,” he said.

“The whole idea of the summit, as we were explained by Trump and Rubio, was to present Putin with a demand for an immediate ceasefire. And if he rejects this proposal there would be severe consequences for him,” Merezhko said. “Putin has rejected that by offering instead a ceasefire as peace treaty, and we don’t see from Trump any reaction, let alone severe consequences.”

Zelenskyy has now been invited by Trump to return to Washington for talks in the Oval Office on Monday — the same setting where, six months ago, he was ambushed by the US president and his vice-president JD Vance over Kyiv’s reluctance to commit to a US-brokered peace deal on terms that were favourable to Moscow at the time.


Trump and Zelenskyy’s encounter in the Oval Office six months ago was explosive © AP

Ukrainian officials said that Zelenskyy would not agree to hand over Donetsk and Luhansk — a long-standing Kyiv red line — but that he would be open to discussing the issue of territory with Trump on Monday and in a future trilateral meeting with Trump and Putin.

Any handover of territory would raise concerns in Ukraine over its sovereignty. In addition, Kyiv worries that giving up its heavily fortified string of cities in the Ukrainian-controlled part of the Donetsk region would amount to offering Russia a springboard for future offensives.

Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, a Ukrainian MP and former deputy prime minister, pondered how “feeding [Putin’s] ambitions and goals” could bring the war to an end and dissuade the Russian president from regrouping and launching fresh invasions later. “How is that going to ensure that no new attack is waged?” she asked.

The prospect of ceding vast, populated swaths of territory that the Russian military never managed to seize would trigger “a lot of tension in society” according to Olga Aivazovska, head of the board at OPORA, a Ukrainian civil society watchdog.

“It will also open the question of why we’ve been defending ourselves all these years,” she said.

Roksolana Pidlasa, an MP in Zelenskyy’s ruling party, said that Putin had demanded Donetsk and Luhansk “precisely because it’s unacceptable for Ukraine”.

“His goal isn’t peace,” she said. “It’s lifting sanctions and trapping Ukraine in a development limbo.”

“This summit was a huge mistake and a huge win for Putin,” said Alexander Khara, an analyst at the Kyiv-based Centre for Defence Strategies think-tank and former Ukrainian diplomat.

If talks were to fail, Trump could pin the blame squarely on Zelenskyy, he warned.

“Since 2014, the Russians have considered any Ukrainian government to be illegitimate, so they won’t consider Zelenskyy a capable interlocutor, especially when they have resources and they believe they can achieve their goals through military means,” he said.


Ukrainian troops on the front line. Kyiv fears a fresh Russian offensive in the coming days © Reuters

The talks unfolded as a stretched Ukrainian military struggles to push back Russia’s summer offensive.

Last weekend the Russian military made a 10-kilometre advance near the coal-mining town of Dobropillia, but it was halted this week, Ukraine’s general staff and Volodymyr Zelenskyy have said. Battle-hardened units such as the Azov first corps and the 79th air assault brigade were rushed to that part of the frontline to prevent the advance from turning into a breakthrough.

Ukraine’s president praised the “successes in some extremely difficult areas of the Donetsk region” but said Russia would press its offensive in the coming days “in order to create more favourable political circumstances for talks with global actors”.

Near Pokrovsk, a once strategic town and logistics hub that the Russian military is now close to encircling, the commander of a small strike drone unit said any lull in the fighting was unlikely.

“The reality is that negotiations are negotiations, meanwhile the fighting keeps going and if we do not deal with it, no negotiations will save us,” Oleksandr Solonko wrote on Telegram.

In the Ukrainian capital, the week of frenzied diplomatic exchanges that culminated in the Alaska meeting did have one tangible effect: an eerie silence, as Russian kamikaze drones stopped targeting Kyiv while preparations for the meeting were under way — even as they kept hitting cities closer to the frontline.

But an air raid alarm blared briefly across Kyiv on Saturday afternoon, triggering fresh anxiety that Russian drones loaded with explosives as well as ballistic missiles would soon be racing once more towards the capital.

[Derby]

https://es.euronews.com/business/2025/08/13/china-evergrande-la-empresa-mas-endeudada-del-mundo-deja-de-cotizar-en-hong-kong

China Evergrande, la empresa más endeudada del mundo, deja de cotizar en Hong Kong


Derechos de autor AP Photo

El colapsado gigante inmobiliario, protagonista de la crisis inmobiliaria china, dejará de cotizar en Hong Kong este mes, lo que pone de manifiesto la agitación cada vez mayor que sufre el endeudado sector.

Evergrande, que fue el segundo promotor inmobiliario de China y ahora es la empresa más endeudada del mundo, anunció el martes que dejará de cotizar en la bolsa de Hong Kong el 25 de agosto.

La empresa, fundada en 1996, creció gracias a una ola de expansión impulsada por el endeudamiento mediante préstamos agresivos para comprar terrenos y construir proyectos. Más tarde se diversificó en gestión de patrimonios, vehículos eléctricos, parques temáticos, agua embotellada e incluso un club de fútbol.

Retirada de la bolsa de Hong Kong

Evergrande era el promotor inmobiliario más endeudado del mundo, con más de 300.000 millones de dólares (257.100 millones de euros) adeudados a bancos y bonistas, cuando el tribunal dictó una orden de liquidación en enero de 2024.

El tribunal había dictaminado que la empresa no había presentado un plan viable de reestructuración de sus deudas, lo que avivó los temores sobre el creciente endeudamiento de China, y la cotización de sus acciones se ha paralizado desde la sentencia. La bolsa de Hong Kong estipula que la cotización de las empresas puede cancelarse si la negociación de sus títulos ha permanecido suspendida durante 18 meses consecutivos.

China Evergrande Group recibió el 8 de agosto una carta de la bolsa de la ciudad en la que se notificaba a la empresa la decisión de cancelar la cotización, ya que el 28 de julio no se había reanudado la negociación. El último día de cotización será el 22 de agosto y Evergrande no solicitará la revisión de la decisión, según informó la empresa en un comunicado.

"Todos los accionistas, inversores y posibles inversores de la empresa deben tener en cuenta que después de la última fecha de cotización, aunque los certificados de acciones seguirán siendo válidos, las acciones no cotizarán ni podrán negociarse en la Bolsa", dice el comunicado.

Un sector con problemas

Evergrande es uno de los muchos promotores que han dejado de pagar sus deudas después de que los reguladores chinos tomaran medidas enérgicas contra el endeudamiento excesivo en el sector inmobiliario en 2020. Incapaces de obtener financiación, sus enormes obligaciones con acreedores y clientes se hicieron insostenibles.

Las medidas enérgicas también llevaron al sector inmobiliario a la crisis, arrastrando a la segunda mayor economía del mundo y sacudiendo los sistemas financieros dentro y fuera de China. El sector, que en su día fue uno de los motores de crecimiento más potentes del país, lucha por salir de una prolongada recesión. Los precios de la vivienda en China han seguido cayendo incluso tras la introducción de medidas de apoyo por parte de los responsables políticos.

El sistema judicial de Hong Kong ha estado tramitando peticiones de liquidación contra varios promotores inmobiliarios chinos, entre ellos una de las mayores inmobiliarias chinas, Country Garden, de la que se espera otra vista en enero. El lunes también se ordenó la liquidación de China South City Holdings, un promotor inmobiliario más pequeño.

Evergrande, fundada a mediados de los noventa por Hui Ka Yan, también conocido como Xu Jiayin, tenía más del 90% de sus activos en China continental, según la sentencia de 2024. La empresa cotizó en Hong Kong en 2009 como "Evergrande Real Estate Group" y suspendió la cotización de sus acciones el 29 de enero de 2024, a 0,16 dólares de Hong Kong (0,017 euros).

Los liquidadores dijeron que han asumido el control de más de 100 empresas del grupo y entidades bajo su control directo de gestión con activos colectivos valorados en 3.500 millones de dólares (2.990 millones de euros) a 29 de enero de 2024. Señalaron que aún no disponían de una estimación de las cantidades que podrían obtener finalmente de estas entidades. Se han vendido activos por valor de unos 255 millones de dólares (218,5 millones de euros), dijeron los liquidadores, que calificaron la realización de "modesta".

"Los liquidadores creen que una reestructuración holística resultará inalcanzable, pero, por supuesto, explorarán cualquier posibilidad creíble en este sentido que pueda presentarse", afirmaron. Hui, fundador de Evergrande, fue detenido en China en septiembre de 2023 bajo sospecha de haber cometido delitos, lo que agravó los problemas de la empresa.

[senslev]

¿Exagera el Coronel?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfsln7adASA

[Derby]

https://www.ft.com/content/eb9336ed-6c7f-4bee-979d-fd356d2e0802

European leaders rally round Volodymyr Zelenskyy ahead of Donald Trump meeting

‘Coalition of the Willing’ members will join Ukraine’s leader in US as part of effort to press Trump on ceasefire


Ursula von der Leyen said she would meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Brussels on Sunday © Andrew Medichini/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

European leaders will join Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a vital White House meeting on Monday with US President Donald Trump, a show of support for the Ukrainian president intended to ward off pressure to hand over territory to Moscow.

Leaders including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian premier Giorgia Meloni, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen confirmed they would attend the talks.

Von der Leyen also said she would meet Zelenskyy on Sunday in Brussels as he tries to rally European allies to convince Trump to force Russia into a ceasefire and to offer US security guarantees to Kyiv.

The pair will speak to the press then join a video call with the “Coalition of the Willing” countries to discuss European military support in the event of a peace deal.

The Coalition of the Willing meeting includes Merz, Macron and Starmer, whose country has pledged “boots on the ground” to help police any ceasefire. France and the UK have led the push to establish a European-led “reassurance” force for a post-peace Ukraine, establishing a headquarters in Paris.

The Europeans hope to convince Trump to provide support to maintain any peace agreement and to press him not to agree to the territorial concessions Vladimir Putin demanded in a meeting with the US president on Friday.


Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump hold a press conference after their summit in Alaska on Friday © Jeenah Moon/Reuters

Putin said Ukraine must pull troops out of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as a condition for peace, the Financial Times reported on Saturday.

He told Trump he could freeze the rest of the frontline in return. Trump passed on the message to Zelenskyy and European leaders in a call on Saturday, but it was unclear if he backed the demand.
Trump agreed with Putin that there was no need for a ceasefire — even though securing one is a long-standing aim of Ukraine and its European allies.

He said he favoured going straight for a peace deal since ceasefires often broke down.

The European leaders will hope their presence avoids a repeat of Zelenskyy’s last White House meeting in February, which ended with him leaving early after a humiliating argument in the Oval Office during which Trump told him “you don’t have the cards” to win the war with Russia and that he should be more grateful for US support.

A statement by EU leaders on Saturday said they welcomed Trump’s commitment to security guarantees for Ukraine without specifying what he had offered.

Putin told Trump he still wished to resolve what he claims are the “root causes” of the conflict, which would essentially end Ukraine’s statehood in its current form and roll back Nato’s eastward expansion.

European leaders said that Russia should not have a veto on Ukraine joining Nato or be allowed to impose limitations on its armed forces.

Ukrainian officials have said that Zelenskyy will not agree to hand over Donetsk and Luhansk — a long-standing Kyiv red line — but that he would be open to discussing the issue of territory with Trump.

A German government official said the talks on Monday would address “security guarantees, territorial issues and continued support for Ukraine in its efforts to repel Russian aggression”.

This included “securing the necessary sanctions pressure”, the official said.

Colleagues of Starmer said they were concerned with the tone of the Putin meeting and a big effort was being put into supporting Zelenskyy ahead of his talks with Trump. 

“Zelenskyy must not be cornered or bullied,” said one UK official. “Europe will not be rolled over. We genuinely welcome President Trump’s efforts but he misjudged with the overfamiliarity and accommodation of Putin.”

Starmer’s allies said they were “throwing everything into the White House meeting”.

Downing Street said on Sunday that the UK prime minister stood ready to support this next phase of further talks and would reaffirm that his backing for Ukraine will continue as long as it takes.