Italian PM to host French and German leaders for trilateral talks that will lay the groundwork for larger Bratislava meeting

The leaders of the eurozone’s three largest countries are meeting on a small southern Italian island for further talks on the way forward for the European Union following Britain’s shock vote to leave.

Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, has welcomed the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, François Hollande, to Ventotene off the coast of Naples for a second round of trilateral talks before an informal EU summit in September.

Rather than offer clarity, Brexit has sown confusion in Europe | Hans Kundnani Read more

The meeting aims “to show the unity of Europe’s three biggest countries, but not to create a specific club”, French diplomatic sources said, adding that the main goal was to prepare the informal Bratislava summit to map out a post-Brexit course for the bloc.

Renzi chose the island because of its part in the foundation of the EU, the Italian government said. Imprisoned there during the second world war, two Italian intellectuals, Ernesto Rossi and Altiero Spinelli, wrote the influential “Ventotene manifesto” calling for a federation of European states.

Spinelli is buried on the island and the three leaders will lay a wreath on his tomb, the government statement said.

At their first talks soon after Britain stunned the union in late June by voting to leave, Hollande, Merkel and Renzi called for “a new impulse” for the EU. Renzi said last month that the Brexit vote represented “a political defeat” for Europe and a “wake-up call” that showed urgent reform was needed.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Matteo Renzi, François Hollande and Angela Merkel met on 27 June to form their initial response to the UK’s shock Brexit vote. Photograph: Action Press/REX/Shutterstock

EU states are divided on what direction the bloc should take to counter mounting Euroscepticism, of which the Brexit vote is the most dramatic example. Brussels and other capitals fear calls for similar in/out referendums could multiply, most imminently in the Netherlands.

Berlin has made plain it wants “better Europe” rather than “more Europe”, with finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble urging member states to be pragmatic and take an intergovernmental approach to solving the bloc’s problems.

“The goal must first of all be to preserve the status quo and to prevent a further disintegration of the EU-27,” one EU diplomat said.



The three leaders also differ over how to boost the eurozone’s flagging economy, with Hollande and Renzi both broadly backing more investment and greater harmonisation, but Merkel anxious to preserve the bloc’s integrity and above all not undermine its deficit and debt rules.



The last time the three leaders met as a trio, in the week following Britain’s vote to leave, the German chancellor had signalled her lack of enthusiasm for “quantum leaps” towards further EU integration, warning that “any measure that strengthens the centrifugal forces already plaguing Europe could have unpredictable consequences”.

For Merkel, the meeting is the start of a week of whirlwind diplomacy that will see her meeting heads of state in Tallin, Prague and Warsaw before hosting first the leaders of the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden and Denmark, and then the presidents of Slovenia, Bulgaria and Croatia at Schloss Meseberg, a baroque castle outside Berlin.

Brexit trade deals: the gruelling challenge of taking back control Read more

The fallout from the Brexit referendum is expected to feature near the top of the diplomatic agenda for most of the week. While the question of similar breakaway movements in other northern European member states is expected to be raised at Saturday’s get-together, Merkel’s tour of central and eastern Europe is designed to scope out common ground on changes to freedom of movement and the future of EU citizens based in UK.

Poland and Hungary, two of the biggest net beneficiaries of the EU budget, face cuts in subsidies when Britain formally secedes from the European Union.

Also on the Ventotene agenda are likely to be internal and external security questions prompted by the recent string of Islamist militant attacks, and Europe’s migration crisis. The leaders are unlikely, however, to discuss specifics on Britain’s exit until London has decided what kind of new trade deal it wants.

