‘Greater Europe’ project becomes clearer, post-Ukraine

THE new European Political Community (EPC) of almost 50 nations meets for the third time on Thursday (Oct 5). The group has generated much media interest since its formation in 2022, yet the debate around its core purpose has only become energised in recent weeks.

While the mandate of the body will not be finalised by the 47 leaders meeting in Spain this week, new voltage has been put into the discussion by the General Affairs Council (GAC), a Franco-German working group, set up by German Minister of State Anna Luhrmann and French counterpart Laurence Boone. This council concluded in its September report that a multi-speed Europe is necessary to shape the destiny of the region in what is an already crowded continental institutional landscape.

What is specifically proposed is a Greater Europe of four overlapping rings – an inner core or “coalition of the willing“ of select EU states such as Germany and France prepared to go further and faster with integration; the wider EU-27 members; plus “associate members” of the EU which largely means those members of the European single market such as Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein in the four-member European Free Trade Area (EFTA).