EPC Meeting Set To Get Underway Amid Doubts Over Format's Effectiveness

The third annual meeting of the European Political Community (EPC) gets underway later this morning with arrivals of national leaders in the Spanish city of Granada from 1130CET (0530ET, 1030BST), while the EPC's plenary session starts one hour later at 1230CET. Livestream here. The EPC is intended to bring together leaders from across Europe in addition to EU members. While UK PM Rishi Sunak will be in attendance, another key European player - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan - will miss the event for the second year running.

• After initial optimism around its foundation, the aims of the EPC have become vague. As Politico notes: "...he EPC’s purpose was never made clear — was it meant just as a talking shop, a halfway house for aspiring EU members, or as a regional forum for European leaders to take decisions and de-escalate tensions?"
• The EPC mission to the Armenian-Azerbaijani border has clearly failed in its objectives following Azerbaijan's lightning occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Kosovan PM is not in attendance, precluding talks with Serbia's president over a recent spike in tensions.
• As such, concrete outcomes from the summit are not seen as likely. Tomorrow, EU leaders meet in an informal format in the same location.