Looking at the EPC family picture: that won't work

A fun note today: let's have a detailed look at the family picture of EU leaders attending the first edition of the European Political Community. Not glorious.

Let’s have a quick look at the European family gathered in Prague to attend Macron’s brainchild: the European Political Community. For your information, that’s the official picture I found on the European Council’s website today.

Let’s start with the center. Emmanuel Macron, the originator of the project, is right in the center of the picture, and one of the rare few to look directly into the camera. Happy to have gathered so many people (and probably immensely stressed about the EPC survival rate), the French President tries his best to set an example for his peers.

Behind him, Luxembourg’s premier Xavier Bettel is probably cracking a joke, which does nothing to cheer the now-focused Emmanuel Macron up. Cypriot Nicos Anastasiades possibly realized too late that the picture was about to be taken and is completely blurred.

Behind them on the last row, Italy’s Mario Draghi, which is on the leave in his home country, seems to be leaving the picture too, obscured by Albania’s Edi Rama’s colorful tie.

To their right (that left of the picture for you), UK’s Prime Minister Lizz Truss is looking awkwardly at her shoes. I can understand her: it must be difficult to go to a gathering of a family you abruptly decided to break up with.

To the far left, Charles Michel is doing what he does best: smiling while autocratic leader Viktor Orban discusses plans to crush democracy with Greece’s Kyriakos Mitsotakis (who is under heavy suspicion of having ordered the wiretapping of a political opponent). I don’t know if Michel does it on purpose or if it’s just bad luck at this point.

Let’s turn to the right side of the image. In the front row, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gets a better look at Macron, probably to figure out why he was dragged into this mess - or maybe did he expect the long-promised EU accession agreement?

The rules of protocol are a mystery to me. On the last row, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz demonstrates that he still does not understand that the nation he leads is the strongest economy in Europe. He prefers to hide in the back and talk business with Sweden’s Magdalena Andersson. Directly next to Scholz, Slovenia’s newly elected Robert Golob tries to get a glimpse at his role model Emmanuel Macron. Who is, as we said above, very focused on the camera.

And to conclude, you’ll find to the far right a group of the four popular guys, not paying attention to anything the professor says, exchanging jokes all day long. Among the four are Belgium’s Alexander de Croo, Netherlands’ Mark Rutte, and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. That’s not too good.

Overall, we have a disorganised, low-quality picture. The Council used to do better. I hope they have another one in store where everyone looks into the picture. It already speaks volumes about the future of the EPC. Let’s hope the talks were more fruitful.