I'm Ed Vasey and we're going to be unpacking the news and politics of the day from political summits to the ghost of the late queen communicating to people via her corgis.

Two people I don't need a corgi to communicate with are Michael Binion, the leader writer and former diplomatic editor for the Times.

Welcome to the show, Michael.

Thank you. Thank you, Ed.

And Gabby Hinsliff, the columnist and writer and author.

Welcome to the show, Gabby.

Hello.

Let's talk about the EU, because Tirana is going to host the sixth European political community summit. Who knew there'd

been five of these already? They're going to be something like 40-something leaders there, including

Kyr Stama. So it's the European political community which you remember. I think Macron set it up

as an alternative, not an alternative to EU, but to include people like us.

Russia, Ukraine is on the agenda and the Prime Minister will also seek discreet chance with allies to get his reset deal over the line in time for Monday's big EU-UK summit.

Michael, are you hopeful about what may happen?

Well, it depends what they're looking at.

I mean, I'm quite hopeful that something will happen at the EU summit reset because it certainly needs to, and there are

lots of threads that need knitting together again. As for the big powwow in Albania, I'm not quite

sure what they're thinking they'll achieve. Of course, they'll wring their hands over Ukraine,

and they'll talk about solidarity, and they'll sort of say, well, Putin really isn't interested in a ceasefire and all that.

Whether they'll talk about, you know, greater European solidarity, integration, do something

about immigration. I'm not sure. Of course, it'll be on the agenda. But these huge conferences

never really lead to anything very dramatic.

No, that's true, but I think they're very useful. It sounds a bit trite saying they're networking events.

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