European summits are held behind closed doors and, in another world, much of the information filtering out would be disseminated informally by aides.
But in the age of Twitter and Facebook, a new breed of European leader has made it a point to communicate their thoughts to the world via brief messages.
Monitoring Twitter is almost a mandatory job at EU summits, where the age of the twitterati means that political positions and pointed comments are disseminated publicly by the leaders themselves.
And yesterday’s EU summit, the first after the British vote to leave the EU, was no exception. Our very own Prime Minister is one of the more renowned twitterati at EU summits, sometimes going so far as to tweet the dinner menu.
Joseph Muscat was one of the first off the blocks at 11.30am, noting the disconnect between the Brussels apparatchiks and ordinary citizens when emphasis was being placed on Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty – which outlines the exit terms for member states.
“Talk of Art50 irrelevant for vast majority of Europeans. Fact that EU talking only about this rather than real issues says it all,” Dr Muscat tweeted, a message he later reiterated in front of the cameras before entering the summit.
Opposition leader Simon Busuttil, in Brussels for the European People’s Party summit, also hit the Twitter deck, calling for “calm, clear-thinking, not knee-jerk reactions” in response to Brexit.
But in a bout of domestic political bickering, he also lambasted the Prime Minister: “Why is Joseph Muscat all over Twitter passing snide eurosceptic remarks, when he just said it would be suicidal to leave?”
The tweet elicited an immediate tweetsponse from the Prime Minister’s spokesman Kurt Farrugia.
He called on Dr Busuttil to “get up to speed” on people’s realities: “EU for people not for legalisms. He [Dr Busuttil] simply does not get it.”
EU for people not for legalisms. He simply does not get it
The petty bickering aside, Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaite, another prominent member of the European leaders’ twitterati club, laid out her views prior to the summit.
In a short message Dr Grybauskaite tweeted: “Keep calm & face the #Brexit challenge.”
The tweet reflected the call she made later in front of television cameras for unity among the remaining 27 member states.