Ghent, 19/10/2001 (Agence Europe) - The French Prime Minister and President, the British Prime Minister and the German Chancellor met for a mini 40-minute summit before the opening of the European Council. The aim of the meeting was to coordinate operations under way or likely to be so at the very highest level. It made it possible to study the "modalities for additional participation in operations in Afghanistan and prepared a political decision which has not yet been taken but which is closer", said French sources after the meeting. The key Heads of State and the Defence Ministers of the three countries had already met on 12 October before the meeting of European Defence Ministers, stressed these same sources. "For obvious reasons of confidentiality", the British delegation refused all comment. Will there be other three-way meetings, and will they replace the traditional Franco-German meetings? "If necessary, we shall meet again", the spokesman simply replied.
The three participants at this meeting dismissed the criticism, stressing that the meeting was devoted to military issues and only concerned these three countries, and that it was in no way a bringing into question of the EU's common foreign and security policy. According to Tony Blair's spokesman, the mini Summit in no way changes the organisation or the substance of the European Council. Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt was informed and recognised that the three-way meeting has nothing to do with the preparation of the EU15 Summit, said French sources. German sources said they were astonished at the reactions provoked by this meeting. At any rate there was general agreement in Ghent to attach no special importance to the holding of this meeting. If they were perhaps vexed, the three key partners did not show it. The Swedish and Finnish delegations, the Spanish Prime Mnister, CFSP Representative Javier Solana, to name a few, declared that "if countries want to meet, it is not a problem". Some Scandinavian diplomats stressed however that "everything depends on what comes out of the mini summit. If the three countries start laying down the rules, then it is a problem".