EU leaders will reaffirm their unity "in dealing with the barbaric Russian attack on Ukraine," said Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in doorstep statements at the European Council meeting being held in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.
In the presence of US President Joe Biden, he added, EU leaders will also reaffirm their support to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and approve the text of the EU's Strategic Compass, which includes "Greece's concerns and reflections on the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean."
On the summit's second and final day Friday, talks will focus on energy, said Mitsotakis, who stressed that apart from EU member states' own national policies, "a coherent European response is required" to battle rising energy costs for businesses and consumers.
With this in mind, he added, Greece proposes that the EU "should begin purchasing natural gas as a supranational entity, which would push prices downwards" by negotiating with natural gas or liquefied natural gas suppliers directly. This is similar to what the EU did during the coronavirus pandemic, he stressed, when "it bought vaccines as a supranational entity, and did not let member states negotiate on their own."