Why is Liz Truss attending a European summit?

Liz Truss is attending the first meeting of the European Political Community (EPC) – here’s what you need to know about the event:

No – the European Political Community (EPC) isn't an EU organisation. It's a wider group of countries getting together to chat about the issues facing the continent.

That isn't totally clear yet. The idea of the EPC was proposed by Emmanuel Macron who argued that the EU could not be the only forum for discussing the continent's issues, because it excluded so many countries.

The point of the organisation is that it takes in more than just the EU: the EU's 27 member states will be there, but so will 17 non-EU countries, ranging from Iceland, to Azerbaijan, to the United Kingdom.

But the long-term future of the summit is very unclear. Will it become a new institution with a formal membership? We don't know. Will there even be another meeting? That is not yet clear. It depends what leaders want to do.

The war in Ukraine and the energy crisis will be the focus of discussion, and Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy is set to address the conference on Thursday by video link.

Truss herself will use the meeting as an opportunity to hold bilateral meetings with Macron and the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte. They will talk about how to stop criminal gangs that are helping people cross the Channel in small boats.

The prime minister is thought to be somewhat sceptical of the EPC, though she is attending on the basis that the meeting is widely regarded a continent-wide show of unity and support for Ukraine against Russia.

Eurosceptics in Truss' party tend to be on the lookout for anything that smacks of rejoining the EU or engagement with European political institutions, but so far nobody seems to have caused a huge fuss about the meeting. So far.

And of course, the domestic political situation for the prime minister, an opportunity to look statesmanlike on the world stage is likely to be an enticing prospect in and of it self.

The meeting is taking place in Prague - at the magnificent Prague castle, to be precise. Coincidentally, the Czech Republic is also currently the rotating chair of the council of the European Union, a job which usually comes with summit-hosting duties.