Meet the brand-new European Political Community

When Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, called in a speech to the European Parliament on May 9th for the creation of a “European political community” (EPC), to bring together European countries both within the EU and outside it, even the French hardly dared to hope that it would take shape less than six months later. Mr Macron fizzes with ideas about Europe, not all of which come to fruition. This one has at least got off the ground: on October 6th, at Prague castle, 44 leaders of countries from Ireland to Azerbaijan will gather for the forum’s first meeting. Few can tell for certain what this new confab is or might become, but all seem minded to give it a chance.

That so many leaders are attending the meeting is more notable than any expected agreements from the half-day affair. In part that is because of the guest list. Beyond the full rostrum of EU leaders, it includes Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, a country with iffy economic management that is nominally applying to join the EU, and Liz Truss of Britain, a country with iffy economic management that left it not so long ago. Every European country will be represented—with the exception of Belarus and Russia, for obvious reasons. (Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine will join by video, for equally obvious reasons).