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Chancellor Merkel held talks with US and European leaders in Berlin. Anyway, from a politico-economic union of 28 member states, just the representatives of 5 were invited. Did her office give an explanation of why she invited just five European leaders to Berlin at "Obama's final day in Berlin"?

http://www.dw.com/en/european-leaders-talk-trump-during-obamas-final-day-in-berlin/a-36433427

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The five countries invited to meet the leaving American president were Germany (the host), France, the UK, Italy, Spain, in addition of course to the US. Those five countries are the five most populated countries in the EU, and also the five with the highest GDP.

It is clear that the aim of this meeting was to allow for an intimate and apical discussion. Inviting people from 28 countries would not have done the job.

If a sixth country had been invited, the natural choice would have been Poland. Poland is the sixth European Country in terms of population, it has a larger area than Italy and the UK, and would also be the sixth country by GDP if we use a PPP comparison (though it has a lower GDP than the much smaller Netherlands and Belgium at the current exchange rate). But the current administration of Poland has very cool relations with the rest of the EU, especially with Merkel. So it was natural to stop at 5 guests.

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    Nice. It is worth noting that a) those were bilateral talks (i.e. they did not affect the EU as a whole) and, most important, that Obama is in his "lame duck" period so actual decisions are not to be expected of these talks.
    – SJuan76
    Commented Nov 26, 2016 at 20:02
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    Kind of doubtful Poland would have been invited given the animosity Obama has generated there. He's extremely disliked by the Poles.
    – user9790
    Commented Nov 29, 2016 at 14:59
  • @KDog - According to Pew research, his positive ratings have always been above 50% in Poland, resting at 58% right now. While lagging behind the higher percentages in the nations invited to this meeting, that's hardly "disliked," or "animosity."
    – PoloHoleSet
    Commented Dec 6, 2016 at 22:03
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    @PoloHoleSet You might want to give this a read harvardpolitics.com/online/hprgument-blog/…
    – user9790
    Commented Dec 6, 2016 at 23:25
  • @KDog - Did YOU read that article? It said that Obama had a 53% approval rating. It also said that Bush had a higher approval rating than he did on other countries, but that was also still less than Obama. Nothing in that article contradicted anything I said in my post. Yes, Poland approves of Obama about 20 points less than other countries do, but 53% is still a decent level (Trump was polling around 9% in most countries recently), just not the immensely high approval Obama has most other places, contrary to conservative claims about the US losing prestige under this president.
    – PoloHoleSet
    Commented Dec 7, 2016 at 2:26

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