Thread by @spornschlegel

Historical #EUCO meeting reconvening later this afternoon on Day 4. A few thoughts on those marathon negotiations. THREAD
1) Frugal4 are 5 w/ 🇫🇮 & 3 of them are Socialdemocrats. So much abt socdem’s EU attitude. Also once again shows the lack of coherence among European parties.

2) Conflicts between N-S (governance, size) & E-W (RoL) show the urgent need for EU reforms. National governments do *not* necessarily have European interests in mind. They need to sell their results to national electorates. This has harmful consequences for 🇪🇺 as whole.

3) Bad deal or no deal? Muddling through is typical for EU - question whether it will be downwards or upwards. Better to reconvene later than get out of this summit w/ bad deal (e.g. too little money for South & “modern” priorities in MFF, no RoL clause)

4) Very likely that we will see many issues still open even if “success” today after Day 4: important own resources Q not part of the negotiations anyway & many technicalities and details will remain open for interpretation - esp as package deal is huge this time.

5) I wish small countries would realise they are small - things unfortunately haven’t changed since the days of Paul-Henri Spaak. Incredible to see some MS oblivious to the bigger picture & role of EU in the word (China, US, Russia are watching us & rubbing their hands).

6) On a positive note: Glad to see 🇫🇷🇩🇪 on the same side again. Initiative was well-coordinated & political will of both countries to make this work really is there. Let’s hope it stays that way for the next few years - and leads to some overall 🇪🇺 compromises.