By Robin Emmott

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union leaders will consider on Thursday whether to seek a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin as part of a new strategy to manage relations with Moscow that the EU says are in a “negative spiral”.

Envoys for France and Germany on Wednesday proposed that holding a summit with Putin was a possible way to repair ties between the close trade partners, following on from U.S. President Joe Biden’s summit in Geneva with Putin.

On opposing sides in standoffs in Ukraine and Belarus, and at odds over human rights, the EU and Russia accuse each other of meddling in elections, disinformation and threatening security and stability from the Baltics to the Black Sea.

“We as the European Union must also seek direct contact with Russia and the Russian president,” Germany’s outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel told legislators in what is expected to be her final speech to the German Bundestag.

“It is not enough for the U.S. president to talk to the Russian president. I very much welcome that, but the EU must also create forums for dialogue,” she added.

She was echoing Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who told Reuters: “We cannot isolate Russia because Russia is a reality that none of us can escape. We need to motivate Moscow to cease its aggressive actions.”

Since Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014 and the EU froze summits with Putin, EU policy has zigzagged between imposing economic sanctions and allowing a new gas pipeline from Russia to Germany to reach completion.

But efforts to resolve the conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine have reached a stalemate, despite ceasefires and peace agreements.

In a sign of tensions, Russia said this week it had fired warning shots and dropped bombs in the path of a British destroyer sailing in the Black Sea off the coast of Crimea, although Britain, no longer an EU member, denied it.

At the two-day summit in Brussels that will also consider the COVID-19 pandemic and ties with Turkey, leaders hope to build on a Russia strategy paper earlier this month by the European Commission and the EU’s diplomatic service.

It warned of a “negative spiral” and “a further downturn” in ties. EU leaders are now expected to build on that paper to flesh out ways to both call out covert Russian action and work with Moscow on combating climate change.

The paper proposes using the mantra “push back, constrain, engage”.

“Out of a confrontation of ideas comes understanding,” a senior EU diplomat said in support of the EU strategy, although the envoy doubted a sudden improvement in trust.

French President Emmanuel Macron already tried in September 2019 to seek less frosty ties with Putin, without success. Some EU diplomats said there should be an improvement in relations before any summit with the Russian leader.

Potential for new flashpoints abound. The EU will on Thursday or Friday publish details of economic sanctions on Belarus, an ally of Russia that the Kremlin sees as a buffer state between Russia and NATO.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott in Brussels, additional reporting by Thomas Escritt and Caroline Copley in Berlin; editing by Angus MacSwan and Philippa Fletcher)