The most exclusive dining club in Brussels

Inside the G5 where ‘the best jokes are told’ and major EU policies are pre-cooked.

The list of power centers where EU policy is made or unmade is already long: the Berlaymont, the Justus Lipsius Council building, the European Parliament’s various headquarters, the German Chancellery, Westminster.

Now you can add another one: the dining room of the Stanhope Hotel in Brussels.

Those cozy and luxurious confines are where five of the EU’s key players gather one or two times per month around dinner and drinks to talk politics, troubleshoot policy, swap jokes, and parry-and-thrust over strategy. They call themselves the “G5,” in a not-so-subtle reference to the G7 group of world leaders who meet regularly to discuss economic issues.

The informal pow-wow brings together the leaders of the European Commission and Parliament, and also of the two main political groups in the EU’s grand coalition: the European People’s Party (EPP) and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D).

Around the table are Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, EPP group Chairman Manfred Weber, Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans, Parliament President Martin Schulz and S&D group President Gianni Pittella.

The regular two-hour dinner is the brain-child of Timmermans, an S&D member who convinced Juncker that he needed to work with the Socialists to get his agenda through an increasingly Euroskeptic Parliament.

G5 member Weber said the meetings are important for keeping a “stable coalition” that can legislate effectively.

“Without it, they cannot manage to deliver,” Weber told POLITICO.

“I’m representing the EPP so I’m talking about what is possible to sell within my party. It organizes a majority so that I can convince my colleagues.”

The dinners are so exclusive that no aides are invited — not even Juncker’s powerful chief of staff, Martin Selmayr. But according to an EPP source, Selmayr is often tasked with following up with the Socialists to make sure they stick to what was agreed at the table.

Those familiar with details of the private meetings say Juncker and Schulz lead the conversations, which are held mostly in English, while Timmermans, who speaks seven languages including Italian, acts as an unofficial translator for Pittella.

Despite having a crucial role in the group — as the man who has to turn around and sell an EPP-driven agenda to the S&D rank-and-file in Parliament — Pittella is seen as something of a fifth wheel in the meetings.

These eureka moments

According to one source familiar with the gatherings, the need to translate for Pittella sometimes slows the group down during “eureka moments,” when Schulz, Juncker, Timmermans and Weber slip into German.

“Timmermans makes sure that these eureka moments are understood by all,” the source said.

Apart from the logistical complications, the atmosphere at the dinners is often convivial and lighthearted.

“The best jokes in town are told at the dinner,” said a source familiar with the meetings. “These are people who have been in politics for years, who meet to wind down and share jokes. Lots of this takes place which is a sign of the chemistry between them.”

More importantly, the group can point to major accomplishments.

 

The group was able to undercut a motion by far-right parties in the Parliament to censure Juncker after the initial revelations in the LuxLeaks corporate tax evasion scandal, which touched on the newly inaugurated Commission president’s tenure as prime minister of Luxembourg.

At a dinner in November 2014, the group lobbied Schulz and Pittella for help in defeating the censure motion. The two parliamentary leaders were able to convince all S&D members but one to vote to reject it.

The G5 spent time during their meetings in late 2014 mapping out how to sell Juncker’s proposal for a €315 billion EU investment fund, and in ensuring support for the Commission’s 2015 budget. Both are considered among the main success stories coming out of the dinners.

The group was also instrumental in rallying parliamentary support for Juncker’s controversial proposal to mandate quotas for the relocation of migrants throughout Europe.

Of course, in the EU, member countries still make the key decisions, and there is no Council presence in these meetings. Donald Tusk, the president of the Council, doesn’t feel snubbed, his spokesman said, adding that the president gets lunch with Juncker every week. “So all is set for good inter-institutional coordination,” Preben Aamann told POLITICO in an email.

But by working behind the scenes to ensure that the Commission and the main parties in Parliament are at least ordering from the same menu, the idea is to build momentum for Juncker initiatives — even if on some of them, such as migration, there is still a long way to go to win over governments.

“It is clear that Juncker proposals have the backing of the parliamentary majority and that is the only leverage that he has right now in front of the Council” on issues like migration, said EPP group spokesperson Pedro Lopez de Pablo.

Behind the scenes

The gang’s most recent meeting was a hastily arranged dinner in Strasbourg at a members’ salon in the Parliament on June 8 to discuss the chamber’s scheduled vote on EU-U.S. trade negotiations, the situation in Greece, and goals for the Paris climate change summit.

Sources said Schulz had assured the G5 group that the TTIP vote was in the bag, but by the next day he had decided to postpone it after it was clear he could not resolve a split in the S&D group.

Naturally, not everyone thinks EU policy should be pre-chewed at an unofficial dinner-and drinks meeting with a VIP-only invitation list. Critics say the group needs more transparency, and needs to be more inclusive.

“The two major groups need to say this is how we’re doing business and the others are excluded,” said a high-ranking administrative source from the Parliament. “They don’t have the courage. This behind-the-scenes, informal, unofficial dealmaking — it’s not appropriate.”

The Parliament’s other party group presidents are also not happy about the arrangement, from which they are essentially frozen out.

“If they are pre-cooking decisions to be taken, or proposals in the pipeline from the Commission, then it’s clearly against the shared powers given to the different European institutions,” said Rebecca Harms, chairman of the Group of the Greens. “Our task is to control the Commission.”

Green group Co-President Philippe Lamberts said the Socialists shouldn’t be so gleeful about their seat at the table.

“It’s a majority driven by the EPP, where S&D plays the role of junior partner,” Lamberts said. “It makes sure that no serious attempt is made to challenge them fundamentally either in the Commission or in the Parliament.”

Some in the S&D group share this view, and are getting restless about their leaders’ willingness to work so closely with the EPP. They point to the divisive debate over TTIP as a prime example of the shortcomings of the coalition; just because Schulz and Pittella are on board doesn’t mean the rest of the group will go along.

“Sometimes it’s impossible to find an agreement,” said Emmanuel Foulon, a spokesperson for the Belgian Socialists. “TTIP is symbolic of the cleavage between the right side and the left side.”

Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) group, is also not pleased about being left out of the dinner group and has been pushing to be included.

“It’s not a two-party grand coalition, despite Liberals being kept out of some of the key coordination meetings,” Verhofstadt said. “We signed an agreement. It’s a G3, pro-EU majority.”

An ALDE party source said the dinner meeting planned for June 2 was canceled after a dispute over whether to expand the group to a G7, to include Verhofstadt and Commission Vice-President Andrus Ansip, who is also a liberal. An EPP source confirmed that the plan was shot down.

“It is true that Verhofstadt has been bullying to participate, but nobody wants him in,” said a source in Parliament. “Schulz just mentioned to the others that he keeps insisting.”

Pittella, for one, allowed that Verhofstadt could occasionally be welcome to the dinners.

“We are the main groups in the European Parliament, the main voters and supporters of the European Commission and we have the right to meet sometimes,” Pittella said. “This is the reality. I think sometimes it’s right to involve Verhofstadt. I hate to seem like we’re excluding.”