This SUMMER: EU leaders on the beach, Putin blocked by Ukrainian drones

Some EU leaders are heading to fancy hotels and mansions around Europe as politics slows down for summer, but Russian president Vladimir Putin is not expected at his beloved Black Sea palace due to Ukrainian drones.

The slow-down will see the EU Council, European Commission, and European Parliament in Brussels cut activity to a minimum, as many EU officials leave the city in mid-July.

The Irish EU presidency will still invite ministers to Dublin for informal talks on education on Monday (20 July) and the environment on Thursday (23 July), as well as fish (28 July), defence (31 July), and foreign affairs (1 September) later on, but the next executive meeting will be a “general affairs” council on 22 September.

EU diplomats in Brussels will also keep holding “working group” meetings (some 15 a day, on various issues, in late July), while hoping to pin down new Russia and Israel sanctions, but these meetings taper off to five a day, then one a day, to zero in August.

“Special meetings and video conferences have been convened during August when required [in the past], including at ministerial level where necessary [if there was an unforeseen crisis],” an EU official said.

The EU Commission “never closes”, but there will be no college meetings of the 27 commissioners in August and few public events.

The EU’s R&D commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva will meet Bulgarian prime minister Rumen Radev in Sofia on 23 July and environment commissioner Jessika Roswall will have tea with Swedish royals in Stockholm on 26 August, among the handful of diary items.

The EU Parliament will close from 27 July to 21 August, but is already emptying, as MEPs fly to the four corners of the world on “delegations” in the last week of July.

Their destinations include: the Azores, Beijing, Cairo, La Paz, New York, and Washington DC.