The European Political Community (EPC) held its seventh meeting in Copenhagen on 2 October. There was no guarantee that the EPC, a 2022 initiative of French President Emmanuel Macron, would ever last this long. It was met with much scepticism at its creation, from candidate countries to the European Union, from Germany and even from France itself. But the continuing high attendance of national leaders indicates that the idea certainly has merit. Still, questions remain about its purpose.
A one-of-a-kind standing conference
Leaders’ continued attendance is due in part to the continuing severe security outlook for Europe. The EPC was proposed immediately after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The war raised deeper questions about Europe’s security architecture, made even more acute since President Donald Trump’s return to power.
Times of trouble require new opportunities for privileged dialogue. The EPC has provided a greater scope for reflection, grasping the whole continent from Iceland and Greenland to the UK and Turkey, regardless of EU membership, reflecting the shared links and interests inherent in a geography that neither globalization nor the digital age have overcome.
The EPC is also boosted by the simplicity of its informal format. It only took a launching summit in Prague to officially create it. It has no true legal basis (there is no founding treaty). It has no institutional or budgetary resources. Membership requires no preparation. Its summits do not adopt any conclusions, favouring instead direct exchange between peers. This informality distinguishes the EPC from well-established organizations such as the Council of Europe or the OSCE, avoiding their cumbersome protocols and procedures – sometimes compared to a kind of European political Davos.
That informality means the EPC is not equipped to deliver concrete projects. However, it has a proven ability to communicate European messages of political solidarity: it sent a clear signal of support for Ukraine at its launch in Prague. At its Budapest summit, it hosted continent-wide consultation in the aftermath of Trump’s election.
The 2024 Blenheim summit provided a showcase for post-Brexit rapprochement: Indeed, for the UK, the EPC has provided an important opportunity to return to the European stage independently of Starmer’s ‘reset’ with the EU. The UK’s enthusiasm is cross-party – Tory governments had pushed for a summit to be held in the UK.
Meanwhile, a message of cooperation to tackle migration has been repeated throughout various summits (Granada, Blenheim, Copenhagen). And the EPC has proved a useful forum to discuss the defence of Ukraine and security more generally across cyberattacks, energy, critical infrastructure, migration, drug trafficking, disinformation and other new forms of hybrid pressure on so-called democratic security. Specific cooperation initiatives have also been promoted, such as the one against drug trafficking taken by Italy and France in Copenhagen.
The EPC also hosts smaller-scale meetings on thorny regional tensions such as those between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Turkey and Cyprus, and Serbia and Kosovo. No decisive breakthrough can be attributed solely to the EPC, but it provides a neutral and agile channel for mediation at the highest level. It also allows for wide-ranging discussions between leaders from ‘small’ and ‘big’ countries. A lack of expectation of declarations or treaties sometimes serves as a strength.
However, the key to assessing the EPC may be the degree of ‘strategic intimacy’, to use Macron’s expression, that its summits enable. The EPC is fundamentally an interpersonal organization, a ‘leaders only’ club that relies on ‘fireside chats’ to promote a culture of dialogue and build trust. In that respect the EPC builds on the approach of the original European Council and G5 (now G7), but on an unprecedented scale. The EPC can therefore also be judged by the personal relationships between European leaders that it nurtures.
What future for the EPC?
The successful holding of summits is not enough to definitively prove the EPC adds any value, nor to guarantee its sustainability. Moreover, its continuation is not an end in itself. Diplomatic formats are meant to constantly adapt.
However, the EPC format holds great potential in the context of rapid geopolitical change. With the Russian threat becoming more acute and transatlantic solidarity no longer a given, the European Political Community, by its very name, could help chart a distinct course.
Now, after three years, the EPC is entering a second phase. Its repeated summits are gradually forging an awareness of belonging to a community of shared European strategic interests imposed by geography.
From a French point of view, the EPC can contribute to the project of affirming Europe as a world power, enabling engagement in truly continental strategic reflection. But to realize that potential, more assertive support from Germany and Turkey will be required. So far Berlin has participated reluctantly, Ankara unevenly.
The EPC has also yet to find the right balance with other established European organizations. That is important, as it could prove to be a useful format of last resort should the EU or other European multilateral institutions become blocked or neglected by a rising far right. And the EPC must find the right relationship with NATO, at a time when the alliance is set to become more Europeanized.
The EPC’s primary purpose should be the strategic task of designing Europe’s security architecture for the period after the War in Ukraine. European experts Antoine Michon and Luuk van Middelaar suggest its role should be compared to that played by the 1973 Helsinki Conference during the Cold War, which later led to the creation of OSCE.