The European Commission President, Mr Romano Prodi, was clearly irked yesterday by the news that the leaders of Germany, France and Britain plan to meet privately an hour before other EU leaders arrive in the Belgium city of Ghent today.
"I think it is a shame that some will be attending and some will not," he said.
Mr Gerhard Schr÷der, Mr Jacques Chirac, Mr Lionel Jospin and Mr Tony Blair insist that nobody should feel threatened by their decision to meet. After all, bilateral meetings between leaders are common on the margins of EU summits.
However, smaller member- states fear that the purpose of the meeting between the big powers is not only to ensure that the EU remains firm in its backing for the US-led campaign against Afghanistan but to smother all debate about the campaign.
Belgium's Foreign Minister, Mr Louis Michel, discovered this week just how insignificant a smaller member-state can be even when it holds the EU presidency. Pressure from the bigger countries forced Mr Michel to make radical changes to a document outlining the EU's role in facilitating a new government in Afghanistan following the expected fall of the Taliban regime.
Mr Michel's offence was to lay too much emphasis on humanitarian aid and to pay too little attention to military and political issues.
The leaders will not discuss Afghanistan until they meet for dinner this evening. Before that they will discuss the introduction of the euro - an event that Mr Prodi believes will provide a crucial boost to the EU economy.
During the afternoon the leaders will address the more controversial issue of Europe's future - or more particularly a declaration on the EU's future to be made at their next summit at Laeken in December. Some member-states fear the Belgian presidency will seek to broaden the scope of the declaration and make it embrace a federalist vision of Europe's future.
Reports that today's summit would announce which city will be home to the new European Food Authority are unfounded.
The Health Commissioner, Mr David Byrne, will be co-ordinating the EU's response to the biochemical threat and he is likely to ask the member-states to provide epidemiologists to boost EU staff dealing with the crisis.
Much of the attention on the summit will focus on the varying levels of support for the US action against Afghanistan. The leaders will seek to paper over the emerging cracks in the EU coalition against terrorism and to persuade their US allies that Europe remains fully committed.
