The leaders of the EU Member States and a dozen European countries will meet on Thursday 6 October in Prague for the first ever meeting of the “European Political Community” (EPC).
A total of 44 countries were invited (the 27 EU Member States and 17 European third countries: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Georgia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, UK and Ukraine).
While the Danish Prime Minister will not attend the entire meeting due to parliamentary requirements, all other invited leaders will participate. Ukraine will be represented by its Prime Minister, although the President will address the opening of the session by video conference.
According to the Czech Presidency of the EU Council, this community represents “a platform for the political coordination of European countries across the continent”. “The ambition is to bring Leaders together on an equal footing and to foster political dialogue and cooperation on issues of common interest so that, together, we work on strengthening the security, stability and prosperity of Europe as a whole”, says European Council President Charles Michel in his letter of invitation to the leaders of the EU member states.
According to European diplomats, the key words for this European political community are “agility and flexibility”. “We don’t want to replicate formats that we already know, we’re more interested in a G7/G20 and intergovernmental format with equal treatment”, summarised one of them.
The meeting will be divided into three parts. First, there will be a one-hour opening plenary session with interventions from the Czech Presidency of the EU Council, Norway, Albania, the UK and Ukraine.
It will be followed by four round table discussions of about 2 hours each on the themes of peace and security and climate and energy, with two round tables per topic. Without wishing to pre-empt the debates, one diplomat said that there could be a reflection on energy cooperation, on the resilience of the continent and the security of critical infrastructures, a sharing of expertise on cybersecurity or a focus on youth. EU Member States could use the opportunity to call on their partners who have not done so to adopt sanctions against Russia.
Finally, a closing plenary session will take stock of the roundtables, during a dinner which is expected to last 2 hours. This could enable the leaders to identify together the areas of cooperation on which the EPC will structure its work for the coming months.
According to sources, the discussion will also focus on the designation of the host country for the next EPC meeting, which could become a biennial or annual format. An EU source hoped that this would be held in the spring of 2023. Several non-EU countries are said to be candidates to host the second edition.
The organisation of the meeting also leaves 3 hours for bilateral or multilateral meetings of EU leaders. Thus, the Armenian Prime Minister announced a meeting with the Azerbaijani President, the French President and the President of the European Council, while tensions between Yerevan and Baku are at their highest (see other news). (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)