As Europe's Big Three meet in Berlin today, Denis Staunton, European Correspondent, asks whether the smaller states should be worried
When the leaders of the EU's three biggest member-states meet in Berlin today, they will do so under the scrutiny of 22 other European leaders who fear the emergence of a powerful directoire bent on dominating Europe.
Mr Tony Blair, Mr Jacques Chirac and Mr Gerhard Schröder have been energetic in insisting that nobody has anything to fear from their meeting and that they are, in fact, acting in the broader European interest.
"I think it is important to realise this is not about trying to create some directoire in Europe at all. I think it is important we try to work at these things together, and that is not in any sense at all to exclude other countries," Mr Blair said last week.
Such assurances cut little ice with Italy's Foreign Minister, Mr Franco Frattini, who warned yesterday that the trilateral initiative could undermine the drive towards European integration.
"Europe must grow with everyone taking part, not by creating groups that decide for everyone else . . . damaging the construction of Europe," he said.
Similar warnings have come from Spain, Poland and Austria, although the Taoiseach sought earlier this month to play down the significance of today's meeting.
Mr Ahern said: "Whether they are three big countries or three small countries - and you know the Baltic countries meet, the Mediterranean countries meet, the Benelux countries meet but obviously when it's three big countries it gets more media attention - the concept of individual countries meeting to explore or engage in discussion and dialogue is something I welcome and I have no problem with whatsoever, either as presidency of the EU, or as Irish Prime Minister."
Today's meeting, at which the leaders will be joined by their foreign, finance, economics, and labour ministers, will be dominated by the EU's economic agenda. The leaders are expected to call for more economic reform and to propose a restructuring of the European Commission to ensure that EU initiatives take proper account of the needs of industry.
A joint statement is expected to call for the appointment of a powerful Competitiveness Commissioner, who would combine some of the roles now enjoyed by the commissioners responsible for industry, the environment, social affairs, trade and the internal market.
The leaders will also discuss EU enlargement and the Irish presidency's attempt to revive negotiations on a constitutional treaty.
For most observers, however, today's agenda is less important than the symbolism of such a large-scale meeting and the clues it offers about the intentions of Europe's Big Three.
Britain, France and Germany have worked together successfully in recent months to agree a deal on the future of EU defence and to put pressure on Iran to tell the truth about its nuclear programme. British officials make no secret of their conviction that the Berlin-Paris-London axis is set to replace the Franco-German alliance as the central relationship within the EU.
There is no doubt that the Franco-German relationship has lost much of its potency as an engine for European integration in recent years. Dormant during much of Mr Schröder's first term in office, the relationship revived in 2002 only to see its authority deeply undermined last November by the decision to allow Paris and Berlin to flout the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact.
In an enlarged EU, France and Germany can no longer feel confident that the European policy compromises they reach will be acceptable to other member-states.
Meanwhile, an economically troubled Germany is unable to play its traditional role in Europe as a generous paymaster and champion of the smaller member-states.
The wisdom of inviting Britain into the Franco-German cockpit is most obvious in the fields of defence and foreign policy, where London shares the concerns of the EU's more Atlanticist member-states. On other issues, however, such as the future financing of the EU, the Big Three are little more than a vanguard for one side in the debate.
The three leaders, along with their Swedish, Dutch and Austrian counterparts, wrote a letter last December demanding a severe restriction on EU spending that would oblige an EU of 25 member-states to manage on the same resources as the present 15-member Union. The letter set the EU's six biggest net contributors on course for a bitter conflict with the main beneficiaries of EU funds, particularly in the new member-states in central and eastern Europe.
Although today's meeting suits the political purposes of the three leaders, each of whom is under pressure domestically, London's excitement is not fully shared in Paris and Berlin.
Few in Germany or France believe that Britain could be part of any "core Europe" that might emerge if negotiations on the constitutional treaty fail to make progress. When senior officials in Paris and Berlin made a preliminary evaluation last month of possible areas of co-operation outside the EU treaties, they concluded that none of the options would be acceptable to London.
Today's meeting is likely to be the first of many such high-profile events that will unnerve small countries and enrage large member-states such as Italy and Spain, which feel excluded from the EU's top table. Some Big Three initiatives will undoubtedly succeed but the limits of the new configuration are already becoming apparent.
Unlike the Franco-German relationship, which was rooted in the post-war reconciliation that formed the basis of the European project and was driven by a shared sense of destiny, the new alliance is based above all on wealth and power. Mr Blair, Mr Chirac, and Mr Schröder can use their combined strength to pursue common interests but they lack the legitimacy, the political will and the sense of direction to form an effective leadership of the EU.