Forty-four leaders of the continent met in Prague on Thursday. The contours, the role and especially the sustainability of this new structure still arouse many questions.
Le Monde with AFP
The European political community (CPE) is launched: forty-four leaders of the continent met on Thursday October 6 in Prague, in an unprecedented format, intended to underline the isolation of Vladimir Putin, seven months after the start Russian offensive in Ukraine.
“It is first of all a message of unity of our Europe”, welcomed the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who launched this idea in May. He recalled that this “CPE” was a much broader gathering than the European Union (EU), with seventeen invited countries in addition to the twenty-seven.
greeting a “great innovation”, the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, judged him good “for peace”, “security” and “economic development”. “The whole European continent is brought together here with the exception of two countries: Russia and Belarus. This shows how isolated these two countries,” said Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo when he arrives.
mark the spirits
The “family photo”, taken in the imposing castle of Prague which dominates the old town, aimed to make an impression and display solidarity when Europe fears, as winter approaches, An unprecedented energy crisis due to the war in Ukraine. On the program of this first summit: working groups, a dinner, but no final declaration signed by all the participants.
a “united European front” in the face of “Putin brutality”
The contours, the role and especially the sustainability of this new structure still arouse many questions. Behind this new acronym, we find latent tensions and countries with radically different trajectories towards the EU: Norway, Ukraine, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, Moldova, Serbia, Azerbaijan …
What common denominator between declared (and impatient) candidates for membership, countries who know that the door is closed to them for a long time and the United Kingdom, which chose six years ago to leave the EU With a crash? Will the CPE are over time or will it join the long list of projects without a future on the continent, like the European Confederation proposed in 1989 by François Mitterrand?
Isn’t it likely to become an anteroom in which candidates for membership will be forced to wait forever? For France, it is an “complement” and not an “alternative” to the EU membership process.
Six years after Brexit, the slightest actions of the new British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who said a word when he arrived at Prague Castle, were carefully scrutinized. During a bilateral meeting with the Czech Prime Minister, Petr Fiala, the two leaders stressed the importance of presenting a “united European front” in the face of “Putin brutality”.
The organizers of the summit hope on this subject the announcement of possible concrete cooperation projects, in particular on energy. For the rest, France hopes for a meeting in the spring with an alternation between member countries of the EU and non -member countries. Moldova is on the ranks to welcome the next meeting.