As the other 27 European Union members wake up from its long August holidays, thoughts are turning to what will be a critical quarter for the bloc as it makes preparations for divorce talks with Britain and a future without the world’s fifth-largest economy.

That began in earnest this week with the summit of the ‘big three’ post-Brexit EU economies – France, Germany and Italy – that kicks off a whirlwind of intra-EU diplomacy leading up an informal meeting of the “EU27” in Bratislava on September 16.

Here are five things we learned from the Hollande-Renzi-Merkel show:

"Brexit won’t break us…"

Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they? But even so, there was a distinct note of defiance yesterday as Matteo Renzi, the Italian Prime minister, said that many people had felt that “after Brexit Europe would come to an end”, but that “this was not the case”.

In truth, it will be a decade or more before anyone really knows whether Brexit heralded the beginning of the end for the EU or – as Mr Renzi promised – the start of a brave new European future unshackled from Britain, that most reluctant of EU members. For core Europe, nothing less than survival is at stake.