The French, Italian, German and Spanish leaders will be meeting in Versailles on Monday 6 March upon the invitation of the French president, François Hollande, who announced on 20 February the holding of a quadripartite summit to prepare for the Rome Summit to celebrate sixty years of the Treaty of Rome and sketch out initial reflections on the White Paper on the Future of the EU (see EUROPE 11736).
On 20 February, the French president explained that it was not a question of the four countries deciding how Europe should be, but the four biggest countries would be saying what they want to do together with the others. Several countries, notably the Visegrad nations, make it clear that they oppose the idea of a several-speed Europe (see EUROPE 11737).
Meeting in Malta on 3 February (see EUROPE 11718), François Hollande and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, discussed the same subject. The Benelux countries have circulated a reflection document on enhanced cooperation. On Wednesday, the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, accepted the idea of a multi-speed Europe and presented it as one of five scenarios as a possible path for the development of the European Union, although his personal preference is for an EU27 advancing at the same speed.
The Versailles meeting should at least, alongside the Rome celebrations, feed into the debate to be held in Brussels on 10 March at the meeting of the EU27 leaders for the Spring Summit, The British leader, Theresa May, will leave the meeting when her colleagues start discussing the future of the EU. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)