They are 43 in the family photo, the Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen being held in Copenhagen for early general elections. Leaders of the European Political Community (EPC) hold their first summit at Prague Castle on Thursday 6 October. The capital of the Czech Republic, which holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, was not chosen by chance to host this first meeting. Some 54 years earlier, in 1968, the city was overrun by Soviet tanks. The war in Ukraine has indeed precipitated the creation of the CPE. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will speak from kyiv by videoconference.
What are the topics on the table? How will the presence of countries like the United Kingdom or Turkey be managed? What are the longer term goals? Response elements.
What motivated its creation?
The CPE is the concrete translation of an idea launched in May by French President Emmanuel Macron, three months after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.. The war has brought to the fore the need “to strengthen continental coordination on foreign and security policy issues” but also of “develop links in energy, transport, trade, research and education”specifies the Presidency of the Republic in a press release published on Wednesday.
This “CPE” is therefore a much larger gathering than the European Union, since 17 countries are invited in addition to the 27 members of the bloc: the United Kingdom, Turkey, the six Western Balkan countries, Switzerland, Norway , Iceland, Liechtenstein, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The objective is a demonstration of unity aimed at Vladimir Putin, at a time when the Russian president is once again brandishing the specter of nuclear weapons and when the continent fears an unprecedented energy crisis.
What will be the place of the United Kingdom in the EPC?
Behind this new acronym and this ambition of unity, we find countries with radically different trajectories vis-à-vis the EU, starting with the United Kingdom, which slammed the door six years earlier with Brexit. The slightest actions and gestures of British Prime Minister Liz Truss in Prague will obviously be scrutinized carefully.
At an extremely difficult time in his own country, this may allow him to find “an international posture, a form of influence on the continent”explains to AFP Elvire Fabry, of the Jacques Delors Institute. “Liz Truss also sees a short-term interest in it, she adds. The energy situation in the UK is such that it needs this space for dialogue.”
“We are not at all in a mechanism centered on the EU, we are in a strategic conversation where it is obvious that the British have absolutely their place”, underlines for its part the Elysée with the press agency. As reminded The worldpSeveral countries such as the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Poland see the British presence as a way to get closer to London, with whom relations have been difficult since Brexit, against a backdrop of disputes over the protocol. Northern Irish.
And that of the candidate countries for EU membership, including Turkey?
Some fear that the CPE will become an antechamber of candidates for EU membership. It is difficult to find a common denominator between those who have just seen this status granted, such as Ukraine and Moldova, and those who know that the door is closed to them for a long time, such as Turkey. The presence of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also been debated. Not only is it not aligned with the European sanctions against Moscow, but it is blocking the membership of the Sweden and Finland in NATO and is in conflict with Greece and Cyprus. He also blow on the embers in the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, both invited.
Suffice to say that the group photo and the round tables were meticulously prepared to avoid diplomatic clashes. “We could at least have required the States interested in the EPC to ratify the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the Union, which would have been a good test of European values”estimated in Release Sébastien Maillard, the director of the Jacques Delors Institute.
The case of Serbia is also delicate. While the country was perceived as one of the most advanced on the path to integration in the EU, the war in Ukraine has reshuffled the cards. Although he condemned this invasion, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic still refuses to join the European sanctions against his Russian ally. What to question his candidacy. The Prague summit should be a new opportunity for the Europeans to increase the pressure on Belgrade.
Faced with threats from Moscow, Georgia is also knocking on the door of the EU. During his speech in May, Emmanuel Macron assured that this European community would be a “complement” and not a “alternative” to the membership process.
What is his roadmap?
For this first summit, the meeting begins with a plenary session and will be followed by “round tables and bilateral meetings”. On the program, energy and climate, peace and security, details RFI. A working dinner will close the sequence, but “no formal written result is envisaged”clarified President of the European Council Charles Michel. The organizers hope for the announcement of possible concrete cooperation projects, in particular on energy. According The worldit will be up to Emmanuel Macron to conclude the work.
For the future, France hopes for a meeting in the spring of 2023 with the announcement, in Prague, of the name of the next host country, which will not be a member of the EU. Moldova is in the running. “The European Political Community will be based on two pillars. The first is political: the members will be able to talk to each other on an equal footing twice a year, a bit like what exists for the G20, but in a pan-European format , to reflect on a common futureexplained in The cross Laurence Boone, Secretary of State for Europe. There is a real gain in the continent’s leaders finding space to freely address their concerns. And because politics must be anchored in the reality of the projects, the second pillar will be that of cooperation.”
Will the EPC really be a long-term one or will it join the long list of short-lived projects on the continent, like the European Confederation proposed in 1989 by François Mitterrand? “It should not be guided by bureaucracy, but by flexibility”warn Edi Rama and Mark Rutte, respectively Prime Minister of Albania and the Netherlands in a joint column published in Politico (in English).