Who really sways the room when European Union leaders meet behind the closed doors of a summit?
In the chart below, we’ve plotted which national leaders are effective at combining forces with their ambassadors to the EU, to ensure power and influence.
In this analysis of what one ambassador calls “the conveyer belt between Brussels and national capitals,” you can see the relative strength of a country’s leader and ambassador, where the country is ranked overall, and whether its trajectory in the matrix is positive, neutral or negative based on likely events in the coming months.
The starting premise is the increasing importance in recent years of leaders’ summits and the “Coreper” meetings of ambassadors who prepare those gatherings and keep diplomacy ticking between them, relative to other ministerial meetings.
Among leaders, Germany’s Angela Merkel is without peer. That places an extra burden on ambassadors (known as “Permanent Representatives”) to help their countries keep the pace. Yet outside elite Brussels circles, few know which ambassadors matter or how well they work with their leaders.
We have included Turkey — given its virtual standing invitation to summits these days — and other EU membership candidate countries to illustrate that influence does not come only from a formal seat at the table.
Scroll down for an interactive map showing each country and their ranking.
POLITICO. Click image to enlarge.
This maps shows each country’s ranking – the darker the blue, the most powerful the country. Touch each country to see our justification for their position and whether we expect countries to rise or fall over the coming months.
What criteria were used to place each country?
Developing this power matrix is admittedly art, not science. But there was a method.
On the national leader side, here’s what we looked at:
- First the basics: Do they have a stable government? If they are running a caretaker government, there’s a penalty for that (Spain, Ireland, for example).
- Does the leader run their country and set its political agenda? (Question marks hang over Poland and France in this regard)
- Do they have a consistent strategy (Hungary certainly does)?
- Do they want other countries to treat them as a special case (U.K., Greece) or are they a team player (Belgium)?
- Do they bring political problems to the table (Greece)?
- Is there an issue where they burn brightly (Estonia on digital, Malta on migration)?
- Are they a force in shaping coverage of the summit (Lithuania) and around the summit table (Germany), or do they wait for neighbors to speak first (Austria)?
- What brute strength do they bring to the table by virtue of size (the Big Six)?
On the ambassador side we looked at:
- Do the ambassador’s peers turn to them to build alliances (Denmark, Netherlands)?
- Does their government deliver on the ambassador’s word (Cyprus)?
- How experienced is the ambassador in Brussels? “It’s not enough to be a good advocate of your national position, you need also to make the [Brussels] machine work,” explains one diplomatic source. The ambassador needs to have good MEP access and to be able to call on more than their national commissioner. By replacing experienced and respected ambassadors, Italy and Poland, are now at a disadvantage in this regard.
- What prior experience they bring to the table? Is it a big diplomatic posting or are they are a political loyalist?
- Are they the first port of call for advice (Lithuania), or the last to know when a leader makes a decision (Hungary)?
- Do they sit alone outside the summit room, or is their leader constantly texting them (U.K.)?
This article has been updated to correct the name of the Latvian ambassador.