The European Political Community: a Truss-Macron ‘olive branch’

Liz Truss’s sudden enthusiasm for new group is ‘risky’ given Tory euroscepticism

Liz Truss will attend the inaugural summit of the European Political Community (EPC) next week, a new forum proposed by French president Emmanuel Macron to bring together EU nations and those outside the bloc.

The move by Truss marks a “significant attempt” to “repair strained UK relations with the EU”, said the Financial Times. It will be seen as an “olive branch” to Macron, the paper added.

Truss will join the first meeting of the group in Prague on 6 October, just months after the prime minister criticised the summit in her previous role as foreign secretary.

And her attitude towards Macron and France was questioned during the Conservative leadership election when she was asked if she considered the president “friend or foe”. She controversially replied: “Time will tell.” 

What is the EPC?

The summit is the brainchild of Macron, who hopes it can bring together European nations from within and outside the EU.

The French president announced it in May, in a speech to mark Europe Day. He said that leaders had a “historic obligation” to form a “new European organisation” that “would allow democratic European nations to find a new space for political cooperation, security, cooperation in energy, transport, investment, infrastructure [and] the movement of people”.

The EPC includes the leaders of the EU, as well as candidate countries such as Ukraine, the western Balkans and Turkey, and neighbours that explicitly do not want to join the union, such as Norway, Switzerland and the UK.

Why does Truss want to attend?

Truss’s new-found enthusiasm for the group will “raise eyebrows”, said The Independent, given she was explicitly critical of the project just a few months ago when she was foreign secretary.

In June, she said she did not “buy into” a Europe-wide political community. But in a significant volte-face, the prime minister has now even expressed willingness to host the next summit of the EPC in London.

Truss is said to believe that the new group offers an opportunity to rebuild the UK’s relationship with the EU in the wake of Brexit. “It’s good that the EU is thinking about their relationship with us after Brexit and vice-versa,” said one Truss supporter.

The UK’s participation in the summit could also help to ease tensions over the Northern Ireland Protocol, the part of Britain’s Brexit deal with the EU that has proven most controversial.

Is Truss’s attendance a risk?

For Truss, rejoining a European political project is a “high-risk” move, which comes at a “sensitive time”, Politico said. This is especially so considering the broadly eurosceptic complexion of her Conservative Party post-Brexit, not to mention the fact that “she is already battling to save her skin”, the news site added, after a “disastrous” first few weeks in office.

The move has certainly proven popular with Tories who did not want Britain to leave the UK. Former cabinet minister David Lidington, who backed Remain in the Brexit referendum, said yesterday that Truss’s attendance would be a “very welcome development”. 

What does the EU think of the project?

“Critics, within the EU, are wary of what they see as a ‘vague’ French-led project,” the BBC reported.

Some have expressed concern that France, “a known sceptic of EU expansion”, will use the EPC as a way to create a “parking lot” for countries who want to join the EU. However, Brussels officials have stressed that the new community will not “replace” its own enlargement policy.

Many within the EU have welcomed the UK’s participation in the group. They see Truss’s decision to attend as a “positive signal” after the UK’s relationship with Europe turned “sour” under Boris Johnson, particularly over the Northern Ireland Protocol, said the FT.

“[Truss’s] participation sends a positive signal about broader neighbourhood engagement,” a senior EU diplomat told the newspaper. “It would have equally been worrying if she had decided not to attend.”