Under the Buttonwood tree in Brussels, part 2. (or 1.5)

As we blogged about it earlier, European Councils represent the apex of information exchange in the life of Brussels journalists and spokespeople in the sense that for long hours they are all crammed into the same building waiting for the outcome of the meeting and discussing the developments in the meantime.

The crescendo of the process, if you will, is the time of the formal press conferences after the meeting. Everyone hurries there and listens to what the big guys have to say (PC remark: „guys” int he plural can mean women and man together.

We will devote today’s coverage in part to covering the press conferences afterwards and looking for curiosities and differences among them.

We have a particular mandate tonight to do so, as well. As you know, Hungary is not a member of the Euro zone, so we are not represented at the discussions. Formal and informal diplomatic exchanges do exist of course (for example Van Rompuy will meet PM Orbán on Saturday), but to decrease the „fog of war” increase our knowledge, we will be covering several of these press conferences, namely the main one (Van Rompuy and Barroso), Germany, France, Italy, Portugal, Greece and Ireland.

So if you are interested to find out more about the national characteristics of major press conferences (and also what they will have to say about the euro) stay tuned for our posting Saturday early morning. A few pictures of the big three in advance below, spot the differences...