Does Prague Visit Signal A Path Back To Anew Europe?

It was not hard to catch a note of surprise among politicians and commentators alike when it was announced just six days beforehand that the prime minister would attend this week’s inaugural meeting of the European Political Community EPC). There were many reasons why her decision to join 43 other European leaders at Prague Castle caught so many on the hop.

- Mary Dejevsky

Even after her victory in the Conservative leadership contest, Liz Truss was trading on her enthusiasm for Brexit with the zeal of the convert she wanted people to believe she was. She gave no sign whatever of heeding those hopeful pro-Europeans urging her to see a fence-mending opportunity in Prague. That the EPC was the brainchild of the French president hardly helped, as relations between Truss and Emmanuel Macron have not exactly flourished since her equivocal friend or foe” remark.

So why did she go? In a newspaper article coinciding with her departure, she cited vital issues affecting all Europe” the Ukraine war, energy security and migration which affected the UK, too. She also mentioned the importance of non-EU members, such as Ukraine, Norway and Switzerland and presumably the UK) having a strong voice” in European affairs, while stressing: We are taking part as an independent sovereign nation, and we will act as one.” So there, Brussels.

There would not be far to look, however, to suggest other reasons. Appearing alongside more than 40 other national leaders at a photogenic location rarely did any national leader’s authority any harm. There is also what might be called the absence penalty.

If everyone else turns up, and one stays away, it is absence, not substance, that is likely to feature on the news, sending the message either that your country is being cold-shouldered by the rest, or that it is deliberately isolating itself. In 2007, Gordon Brown went all the way to Portugal but signed the Lisbon Treaty alone. In trying to convey one political signal, he sent a host of more negative ones.