Downing Street said the Prime Minister spoke with Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof on 7 December 2025 amid intensified Russian strikes on Kyiv. Both leaders agreed that sustained international support for Ukraine’s defence remains necessary.
The UK Prime Minister briefed Mr Schoof on a No 10 meeting scheduled for Monday 8 December 2025 with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The readout states the discussion will centre on ongoing peace negotiations and next steps.
The leaders reiterated that Ukraine’s security is vital to Europe’s security. The statement also referenced continued international cooperation, including action through a ‘Coalition of the Willing’, and confirmed the two prime ministers would remain in close contact.
Policy Wire analysis: The invocation of a Coalition of the Willing indicates preference for agile, ad‑hoc coordination alongside NATO and EU frameworks. UK officials often use this construction to signal that delivery‑focused groupings may move faster than consensus‑bound institutions.
Policy Wire analysis: Positioning the Netherlands in a pre‑brief underlines The Hague’s role in sustaining European support to Ukraine and in linking northern and Benelux partners into UK‑French‑German initiatives. It also suggests rapid circulation of any outcomes from the 8 December session.
For policy teams, the readout points towards continuity rather than policy reversal: a focus on durable assistance, structured security assurances, and closer alignment of planning cycles between London, Paris, Berlin and The Hague. The emphasis on ‘sustained’ support implies multi‑month resourcing rather than discrete one‑off packages.
By pairing references to peace negotiations with security guarantees, the language is calibrated to discourage interpretations that diplomacy equates to pressure on Kyiv to concede. It keeps deterrence, defence assistance and talks proceeding in parallel, which has become the preferred European framing.
Attention will now turn to the outcomes of the 8 December 2025 discussions at No 10. Indicators to watch include any timetable for follow‑on meetings, references to joint delivery mechanisms under the ad‑hoc coalition format, and how the communiqué situates activity relative to NATO and the European Union.