In an effort to de-escalate the conflict between Israel and Iran, foreign ministers from Britain, France and Germany, together with Kaja Kallas, the European Union foreign policy chief, are scheduled to hold talks on Friday with their Iranian counterpart, in what would be the first formal meeting between Iran and the West since Israel began attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The meeting, scheduled for Geneva, is the product of days of back-channel discussions between European ministries and is the most significant European involvement since Israel launched its surprise attacks last week — if it is not pre-empted by American military strikes.
European leaders have been effectively sidelined since the war started, and are trying now to exert the limited leverage they have as weapons suppliers or potential peacemakers in an effort to end the war.
On Wednesday, they called for restraint and de-escalation between Iran and Israel. On Friday, they are set to urge the Iranians to return to negotiations even as President Trump holds the possibility of American military involvement over their heads.
European views are unlikely to be an important factor in Mr. Trump’s decision on whether to attack Iran. He already tried to bypass Europe and negotiate a nuclear deal on his own, though unsuccessfully.
Still, if American troops are hit by Iran, Washington will expect European support. If a negotiated deal is ever completed, the Europeans will be important in helping to enforce it.
“The European Union can play and will play its part in reaching a diplomatic solution,” Ms. Kallas said this week, adding that she would “spare no efforts in this respect.”
Europe’s position is hampered by its division over Israel. German, French and European Union officials have ramped up criticism of Israeli military conduct in Gaza. But they have been much more guarded and divided when it comes to the strikes on Iran. The German chancellor has welcomed them; the French president has warned against a widening war.
Europe once played a larger role with the Iranian nuclear challenge.
When he was the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana first approached Iran in 2007 about its troubling nuclear program. Mr. Solana opened talks with the Iranians that later expanded to include the permanent member countries of the U.N. Security Council — Britain, France, China, Russia and the United States — plus Germany, and under the chairmanship of the European Union.
That produced the 2015 agreement, which gave Iran relief from punishing economic and military penalties in return for limits on its enrichment of uranium.
Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement in 2018, to European anger. The Europeans stayed, but Iran soon resumed enrichment activities.
Now, European leaders are torn. They do not want Iran to produce a nuclear weapon. But they are fearful of a regional war that damages energy infrastructure, drives up the price of oil and gas even further, closes the Strait of Hormuz and brings another wave of panicked asylum seekers to Europe.
Ms. Kallas is scheduled to present what is expected to be a critical review of Israel’s actions in Gaza to foreign ministers on Monday. António Costa, the president of the European Council, has suggested that Israel could be found in breach of its human rights obligations and might face penalties from Brussels. But whether E.U. member states actually have the consensus needed to reprimand Israel is not yet clear.
President Emmanuel Macron of France warned this week against the Israel-Iran conflict spiraling into a “regime change” effort like the war in Iraq. He has asked his foreign minister to work with the Europeans to come up with “a stringent negotiated settlement” to end the war.
France has in the past been the toughest of any Western country in demanding that Iran’s nuclear program be contained and strictly supervised, to maintain the credibility of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. At the same time, in a sign of displeasure with the Israeli government, Mr. Macron is toying with a symbolic recognition of a Palestinian state.
Friedrich Merz, the new, conservative German chancellor, said this week that Israel was doing the world’s “dirty work” in trying to stop Iran from reaching its nuclear ambitions. He defended the comment to reporters on Wednesday and said the sentiment was widely shared.
But Germany, long a vocal supporter of Israel, is increasingly queasy about Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday about the Iran attacks, a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry, Christian Wagner, began with a long critique of what he called the “catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza.”
For all of that, European leaders appear to have relatively little sway with Iran or Israel, or even Mr. Trump. Their best leverage in the nuclear conflict might be a remnant of the 2015 deal with Iran, known as “snapback sanctions.” It effectively allows Europe to call for a reinstatement of the financial penalties on Iran that were lifted as part of the agreement.
That threat is set to expire in October, along with the rest of the 2015 agreement.
Steven Erlanger is the chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe and is based in Berlin. He has reported from over 120 countries, including Thailand, France, Israel, Germany and the former Soviet Union.
Jim Tankersley is the Berlin bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Jeanna Smialek is the Brussels bureau chief for The Times.
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