We’re in a plenary session week once again (they seem – to me, at least – to come around so fast). We had the early management board and pre-session meeting this morning and this evening the Enlarged Presidency (the President, Vice-Presidents, Group Presidents and the Secretary General) met to go through the Bureau and Plenary Session agenda in order to smooth out the processes and ensure overall success. If a Secretary General may venture an opinion, despite being an entirely informal body, the Enlarged Presidency is now such an established part of the landscape both because it is necessary and because it works. The dynamics are now well-established, including ‘whispering interpretation’ provided by two ever-excellent volunteer translators. Looking around the table, I say to myself that the meeting is roughly the same size as the original High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community and the first European Commission. It gives an idea of just how intimate those first meetings, chaired by Jean Monnet and Walter Hallstein respectively, must have been.