Theresa May receives surprisingly warm welcome at EU summit, despite lame-duck status and Brexit chaos

Theresa May has a history of being unceremoniously banned from EU summit dinners, so the other 27 leaders can talk about Brexit without her. But with Britain off the menu at Tuesday’s meeting – which was strictly about choosing Jean-Claude Juncker’s successor – the prime minister was, for once, fed.

Some wondered why she bothered to come, given her lame-duck status and the fact Britain is supposed to be leaving the EU. But she didn’t appear to care – arriving with the unusually cheerful demeanour of someone who’s had a ton of Brexit bricks lifted from her shoulders.

She told reporters that she was in town because while Britain was still an EU member, it had all the same rights and obligations of any other country in the union – including choosing its next commission president. Perhaps worrying that this was a bit forthright, she quickly added that Britain, of course, would abide by the rules of “sincere cooperation” – Eurocrat speak for not taking the piss.

In the room, the body language between May and her counterparts seemed genuinely warmer than usual. She took an overfamiliar embrace from Mr Juncker in her stride, meeting his gaze. Earlier in the week he’d told the world’s media through a spokesperson that she was a “courageous” leader. It was not long ago that in the same room that the prime minister was confronting him for supposedly calling her “nebulous”. For once, it looked like she was having a nice time.

This won’t be the prime minister’s final visit to the EU capital – she’s due to come again in June for another scheduled meeting, where her fellow leaders will probably bid her a more formal farewell. It’s unlikely she’ll miss the city – which she claimed she had visited “something like 50” times – it is, after all, the site of some of her greatest political humiliations.

While the leaders tucked into their melon and dried figs (for that was the starter), the absence of Brexit did not go uncommented upon on the conference floor. Some European journalists, only half joking, openly celebrated the fact that the usual caravan of hacks from Westminster who follow the prime minister’s every move had mostly decided it wasn’t worth it this time.

“The Brits actually stole the spot usually used by Belgian journos,” one Brussels local complained. Another quipped that they had been “spared the horde” of Brits that had been “invading” the last few meetings and taking up valuable desk space.

It’s probably too early for them to celebrate. Brexit will be back here with a vengeance in October. And possibly for a long time after that, too.