Hello, and welcome to Rapporteur PM.

The question of who in Europe should call Moscow, and when, arouses strong feelings.

Just how acrimonious the debate can be is something that Alexander Stubb, the Finnish president, and Jonas Gahr Støre, the Norwegian prime minister, discovered shortly after getting off the phone to the Kremlin today.

The pair had hardly hung up on a long call to Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, before the storm broke.

Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, was quick to condemn the initiative, comparing Stubb and Støre to pro-Putin pariahs like Slovakia’s Robert Fico and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.

The stinging slap down has wrecked Stubb’s longstanding ambition to become the EU’s voice or envoy in any future peace negotiations, an idea floated repeatedly by Finland in May this year.

According to Rapporteur’s sources, nothing moved during the 90-minute conversation opened by Støre and Stubb, confirming their critics, such as Frederiksen, who stress that there is no point in talking to Putin because Russia has no intention of seeking peace.

“Now, at least Europe is involved in the dialogue," said Stubb, defending the phone call.

The call was made ahead of planned trilateral peace talks involving Russia, Ukraine, and the United States planned in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, during the first half of November.

Stubb and Støre might have crashed and burned in their joint bid to put themselves forward but they have reopened the debate over when is the time to sue for peace, breaking ranks with those who insist that Russia must declare a ceasefire first.

“Negotiations cannot wait: Europe cannot afford to lose further ground; it must decide who represents it, and it must do so quickly,” an Italian government source said, opening old wounds.

Far from speaking for Europe, Støre and Stubb have put European divisions on public display.

OH CANADA: Germany, Italy, France and Greece and three other countries have objected to a joint EU-Canada statement proposing to make the north American country the bloc’s first “associate member” – a contentious label – ahead of a summit later this week.

FRONTEX: The European Commission is proposing to give Frontex, the European border agency, new powers to flag social media disinformation to national authorities. Frontex has been eyeing expanded powers to monitor disinformation circulating on social media platforms as part of its revised mandate from the Commission.

BUCKLE UP: Europe must prepare for a rapidly warming continent, the EU executive said in a proposed first-ever climate adaptation law. It would require EU countries to draft plans for coping with four degrees of warming in Europe.

BOOING BOEING: A €3 billion financing package from the European Investment Bank to Airbus could reignite a long-standing trade dispute over subsidies to aircraft manufacturers, warned US trade chief Jamieson Greer.

BYE, BARTOL: Poland’s ambassador to the EU, Agnieszka Bartol, will swap Brussels for Warsaw after two years at the helm of the Polish permanent representation. The seasoned diplomat is nominated to become a minister for regional development.