The world can’t keep up with these turning tables

Welcome to Declassified, a weekly humor column.

Tables have been turning, haven’t they.

Small, long, exclusive … all sorts of desks!

The world went from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s deep — and deeply paranoid — bureau during the pandemic to this week’s U.S. President Donald Trump’s very selective negotiating table. The former was meant to keep European leaders — and their germs — at a distance; the latter is used to decide a country and its people’s fate. Without said country nor people joining the conversation, of course.

Although Trump and Putin did not physically sit together in Riyadh on Tuesday to discuss how to end the war in Ukraine, their trusted emissaries did: Russian Foreign Ministry Sergey Lavrov and Secretary of State Marco Rubio (remember him? Little Marco? These tables have been spinning quite dramatically) seemed to agree on pretty much everything, from peace conditions to their love for the movie Horrible Bosses (one can assume).

Both parties had a common message for European and Ukrainian leaders: You can’t sit with us. If they start wearing pink on Wednesdays, we will finally know who to blame for how crazy the world has turned out to be in recent years: Tina Fey.

But the message was received. And EU heads of state reacted in typical European fashion, calling their own meeting — in Paris, bien sûr — to discuss conditions that no one will ever pay attention to and, most importantly, reach no conclusion whatsoever. Agree to disagree is an art form for the Old Continent.

It felt a bit like Christmas dinner in a big Southern European family. The grownups — tired of having to deal with their own children — sit them in a separate room, on the other side of the house. Armed with paper plates, old cutlery and those glasses that used to be Nutella jars with Disney characters painted on them (but a few rounds in the dishwasher erased the colors, so you can barely tell Mickey Mouse from Donald Duck at this point), they can pretend they are just as important as the adults. And the parents can have real conversations without being constantly interrupted. That’s the true spirit of Christmas.

Basically, EU leaders were banished to the kids table.

But there’s always that one cousin. The one who is smart or old enough to understand what’s going on and willing to speak truth to parents. In Europe’s case this week, that was Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs who plastered all of his social media accounts with a simple but effective message: “Never stop panicking.”

CAPTION COMPETITION

“And then I said: ‘Of course I will vote for you, Olaf’ and he believed me!”

Can you do better? Email us at gpoloni@politico.eu or get in touch on X @POLITICOEurope.

Last week we gave you this photo:

Thanks for all the entries. Here’s the best from our postbag — there’s no prize except for the gift of laughter, which I think we can all agree is far more valuable than cash or booze.

“Oh, you sexy motherfucker.”
by Anonymous