A hastily arranged pre-summit breakfast meeting convened by Italy, with Germany and Belgium, disrupted the start of an EU leaders’ meeting this week and fuelled accusations of closed-door politics. The gathering, held at a hotel near Ardenne-Bissen castle, attracted 19 of the bloc’s 27 leaders and left several capitals complaining that they had been excluded from an informal forum that complicated the summit’s schedule.
The breakfast grew out of an informal alliance that has previously met to push for tougher migration controls. Italy’s prime minister was understood to have invited the group and the three hosts framed the session as a preparatory conversation on migration and growth. What was meant as a focused, tactical meeting instead became a public-relations headache when several senior figures arrived late and because some member states said they had not been invited.
Madrid made the strongest diplomatic protest: Spain’s prime minister raised the matter directly with Rome. Ireland’s leader, who was not present, wryly likened his position to Britain’s historical policy of "splendid isolation" and said he could not see the need for what he called a "private club" within the EU. Diplomats from three countries that were not invited told colleagues they were concerned by the exclusion.
Belgium’s prime minister rejected the idea that a rival bloc was forming, saying he believed invitations had been extended to all and that there was no intent to impose one group’s will on the rest. Yet the optics were poor: Italy’s prime minister, Germany’s chancellor and France’s president—three leaders of Europe’s largest economies—arrived late after the main session had already been scheduled to start.
European Council President Costa proceeded to open the summit’s first session on economic growth before the three late arrivals had taken their places, citing a packed agenda and a need to keep to time. Insiders said the meetings that followed produced little in the way of new outcomes; with 19 leaders crowded into one room, few had a chance to speak, and some described the gathering as lacking substantive agreement.
The episode matters because it speaks to a recurring tension in EU decision-making: the convenience and utility of small, informal coalitions against the risks those gatherings pose to the bloc’s cohesion. Small-group diplomacy can help unblock policy, especially on contentious issues such as migration, but when invitations or timing are seen as arbitrary it feeds mistrust among member states and amplifies suspicions that powerful capitals are steering the agenda.
Beyond the immediate diplomatic discomfort, the incident may complicate upcoming negotiations on migration and economic policy by hardening positions among states that felt sidelined. If repeated, such practices could weaken the procedural norms that underwrite EU collective action and provide ammunition to political forces that argue Brussels is driven by a few dominant capitals rather than by consensus among all members.