The most important event of the Czech EU presidency takes place in Prague this week, hand-in-hand with the informal EU27 summit.

The European Political Community (EPC) has been derided as a deceptive ploy to sideline the enlargement process, or simply a characteristically grandiose but vague proposal coming from the French.

Nonetheless, the leaders of 43 countries — from Iceland to Turkey and Azerbaijan — will descend on Václav Havel International Airport and convene together with their host, the Czechs, at the Prague Castle.

In doing so, they will signal their interest in having conversations in the new format. The party will include Liz Truss, who previously expressed serious reservations about the project, and is said to insist on renaming the format since community sounds too much like ‘Brussels’.

What comes of this meeting is unclear at present — even to those, it seems, who convened it.

This is not a reason to a priori dismiss the project. What is needed, however, is clarity about what it can and cannot be, and do.

The EPC cannot be a substitute for an enlarged EU. Many non-members do not aspire at membership — after all, one participant exited a short while ago after nearly 50 years of membership; others forcefully oppose the idea that this is what they should get instead of it as a consolation prize.