Thread by @DaveKeating

I’m in #Prague for tomorrow’s 1st summit of the new #EuropeanPoliticalCommunity.

The 27 🇪🇺 leaders will be joined by #Truss, #Erdogan, #Zelensky & others.

The big question: what the hell is this thing? The answer depends on what happens tomorrow in a battle between 🇬🇧&🇫🇷. 🧵1/9

The idea is that this is a wider European bloc which will include countries not in the EU, either because they’re waiting to join, they don’t want to join, or they’ve left (🇬🇧).

But there are already such groupings, like the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and the OECD in Paris.

What’s the point of the EPC then?

The idea is that, unlike CoE & OECD, this will be a forum for heads of state and government to meet and discuss major issues.

Such leader meetings don’t happen in those other organisations.

The EPC was Macron’s idea, proposed in a speech to the 🇪🇺Parliament earlier this year when 🇫🇷 held the rotating EU Council presidency.

European Council President Charles Michel (often derisively called a Macron puppet in Brussels) ran with the idea, putting Council in the lead.

The EPC was Macron’s idea, proposed in a speech to the 🇪🇺Parliament earlier this year when 🇫🇷 held the rotating EU Council presidency.

European Council President Charles Michel (often derisively called a Macron puppet in Brussels) ran with the idea, putting Council in the lead.

Michel attached it to an informal European Council scheduled this Friday in Prague Castle, run by #Czechia which now holds the rotating presidency.

Macron specifically referred to 🇺🇦 & 🇬🇧 as reasons this forum is needed. Big question was: would 🇬🇧 join?

New UK PM #LizTruss had signalled she’s not interested, belittling the idea and saying it’s unnecessary.

But in one of several u-turns over the past week, she suddenly said not only will she attend and 🇬🇧 will join, she basically wants to run the thing. euractiv.com/section/future…

UK officials reportedly asked that the 2nd meeting be in 🇬🇧, and they also want to change the name - to “European Political Forum”.

It’s not hard to see what happened here. 🇬🇧realized if they don’t push to the front now, this will be an 🇪🇺-dominated forum bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politi…

So tomorrow could turn into an arm-wrestling match between #Truss & #Macron (who she famously said is neither friend nor foe two months ago) over whether EU or non-EU countries will be in the lead.

And/or, it could finally lead to a thaw in 🇬🇧🇪🇺 relations.politico.eu/article/europe…

There are other key things to watch tomorrow:

🇹🇷: Will Erdogan embrace EPC idea? Will he join Truss to put non-EU in the lead?

🇺🇦: Will Zelensky (joining by video) still be suspicious this is meant to put off EU accession?

🇨🇭: Will this improve souring 🇪🇺🇨🇭relations? 🧵 9/9