Reporters dig deep to track the comings and goings of EU elite

IN the middle of a news blackout, who comes and who goes offers a vital clue as to what is going on for the myriad of intrepid reporters covering EU meetings.

But it can be very difficult as the number of meeting venues can be myriad also.

So there was a distinct ripple of uncertainty when Belgium’s finance minister Didier Reynders emerged from the building where he and other EU finance ministers were meeting in Brussels on Saturday.

Reynders, one of the longer serving finance ministers and routinely more open with the media than most, got into his white, chauffeur-driven car with the interesting number plate “A3” — slightly out of step with his country’s Aa rating — one step below triple A.

The meeting was not due to finish yet so just what did it mean that one of the eurozone ministers was leaving? Quickly, somebody came up with the answer — he was off to the cinema. In fact, he was going to the premiere of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.

So it was not just any old film. Its hero, the globe-trotting, fearless reporter, Tintin, is part of every Belgian’s DNA and now he has been brought to the silver screen by Steven Spielberg.

Earlier, Reynders was in Hotel Amigo, the five-star hotel near the Grand Place in the centre of Brussels which was also hosting two other superstars in their own right — French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel — she on the fourth floor, he on the third.

There was little sign that their strained relationship had improved over the past few days after the blow-up in Frankfurt between them, when Sarkozy took time out from his wife’s bedside while she was giving birth to their daughter.

There were not many journalists watching their comings and goings, but there was one who helpfully tweeted his observations. Sarkozy arrived first at 11.30pm and with a stern face went directly to his room. Five minutes later the German Chancellor arrived and descended some time later to have a drink with some of her advisers. The tweet reported she looked incredibly cool — the result, obviously, of having a sound economy, they mused.

Under less observation was Taoiseach Enda Kenny since those waiting for him at the EPP meeting gave up eventually. He was delayed in Dublin to attend a rally for MEP and presidential candidate Gay Mitchell.

It is an important event, especially as decisions are being shaped increasingly by groups within the EU. Fine Gael belongs to the largest of these, the European People’s Party, along with the presidents of the commission, council and parliament, 17 EU heads of state and government, 13 members of the European Commission and, of course, the largest group in the European Parliament.

The smallest cabal is France and Germany that between them are increasingly behaving as the chief executive and chair of the EU board.

Everyone is getting used to their one-to-one meetings in Paris and Berlin but this took a new turn over the weekend when they met in the office of the EU Council president, Herman Van Rompuy, with him and with the commission president after the EPP meeting.

Word was they had summoned the Spanish Premier Jose Zapatero and the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, to the meeting, also representing the next weakest links in the eurochain. As it transpired Berlusconi instead met them yesterday morning where they delivered the message that he must deliver on promises to basically reform Italy.

They want him to deliver structural changes that would allow the country to grow for the first time in a decade, as well as other major reforms.

However, just how this can be achieved, nobody is clear. There are sufficient “helpers” in Greece to time line and check progress on their austerity package. But Italy, with its deeply ingrained alternative governance structures, would be a different story altogether.