Meloni and Merz once again convene a group of leaders for a video conference on energy and simplification

The leaders of Germany, Friedrich Merz, Italy, Giorgia Meloni, and Belgium, Bart de Wever, have called again this Tuesday for a meeting – this time online – with their partners in the European Union to address the energy situation and the rise in prices as a result of the conflict in the Middle East, as well as ways of simplification to boost competitiveness, in a meeting that will serve to prepare the European Council next week.

The meeting will take place late this Tuesday with the aim of discussing “competitiveness” issues and, although the list of participants is not closed, the format is that of “Alden Biesen’s group”, although not all the participants from then will be able to join this time, official sources from one of the organizers have confirmed to Europa Press.

With this format, the source refers to the meeting prior to the informal summit of EU leaders that took place last February at the Alden Biesen castle (eastern Belgium), which was attended by around twenty leaders, among whom was not the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, but the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, or the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk.

Sources from Von der Leyen’s Executive do not clarify at the moment whether he will be part of the telematic meeting this time, while from the team of the president of the European Council, António Costa, they indicate that the former Portuguese prime minister has been informed, but will not participate in the meeting.

It should be remembered that the first meeting generated discomfort among some leaders such as Sánchez and Costa, who conveyed to the organizers the importance of maintaining “unity” to achieve “consensus”, while warning them that to achieve such unity the meeting place must be the European Council and not in “small groups, which can be counterproductive to that objective.”

The Spanish Government, for its part, also conveyed to the Italian Executive that it did not view this type of meeting favorably because it “undermines” the basic principles of the European Union and distances solutions instead of bringing them closer.