The Italian aircraft carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi usually patrols the Mediterranean as the flagship of the European mission to save shipwrecked refugees. On Monday, it will host the leaders of Germany, France and Italy as they try to ensure the European Union doesn’t founder in the aftermath of Brexit.

The meeting of Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande and Matteo Renzi off the coast of Naples will be rich in symbolism.

The Garibaldi, named after the general who helped unify the Italian state in the 19th century, is tackling one of today’s greatest challenges to the European project in migration. Before they are helicoptered aboard from the island of Ventotene, the leaders will visit the grave of Altiero Spinelli, an anti-fascist who helped draft a 1941 manifesto calling for a federal Europe. Spinelli wrote on cigarette papers smuggled out of a prison camp on Ventotene while interned during World War II and later became an EU commissioner.

The present-day leaders of the euro area’s three biggest economies will focus on both the future vision of Europe and immediate challenges such as Britain’s vote to leave the EU, economic growth, terrorism and political turmoil in Turkey, as well as migration. They’ll hold a news conference and then have dinner on board the Garibaldi, seeking to shape where Europe goes from here and the EU’s negotiating stance toward the U.K.

David Fuller's view

We hear that today’s meeting of Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande and Matteo Renzi aboard the aircraft carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi “will be rich in symbolism”.  No doubt, although perhaps not as intended.  Cartoonists may see it as an initial rescue of shipwrecked politicians who will face even more uncomfortably hot waters in next year’s elections.   

Left of centre political commentators, and not just within Europe, have long described the European Union as a ‘noble experiment’.  Unfortunately, it is another foundering socialist policy, which enriched the elite, while eroding European democracy, weakening the region’s economies and creating shameful levels of unemployment.