EU's big three search for elusive chemistry

[Wonk]

Luke Harding in Berlin, Jon Henley in Paris and Michael White in London
Wednesday February 18, 2004
The Guardian

Tony Blair and President Jacques Chirac of France fly to Berlin today for a trilateral summit of the European Union's "big three" in advance of the EU's enlargement on May 1 from an unwieldy 15 members to a daunting 25.

Some hope - and others fear - that the meeting symbolises the way the EU will be governed. Some French officials have described it as "a triangle of infinitely variable geometry". More prosaically Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, has said: "If the three of us agree, Europe is likely to be more united."

Yesterday, one senior French diplomat said: "It's clear that a France-Germany-Britain triumvirate is very powerful and can achieve a great deal. It could perhaps even make Washington think twice, which is a very attractive idea for all three leaders."

(snip)

However well or badly the trio hit it off today the fact that they are meeting is enough to alarm their neighbours. No wonder London is playing down the meeting or that Mr Blair and Mr Straw have been saying there will be no troika - no directoire in EU jargon - trying to exclude others. "We fully understand the anxieties of other member states," Mr Straw said on Sunday.

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http://politics.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,9061,1150351,00.html