When Herman Van Rompuy in December said he intended to call an extraordinary summit in February to discuss the economic crisis, it seemed a perfectly adequate, and not particularly controversial, first step for the newly elected president of the European Council.

The EU is rather good at summitry after all. Matters are discussed and/or argued to a greater or lesser degree. Sometimes there are breakthrough agreements. More often there are fudges.

Then everybody goes home again. They leave in their wake, wordy conclusions (if it is a formal summit), a promise of future wordy conclusions (if it is as informal gathering) and somewhat disparate accounts of the meeting itself.

Until now this was more or less sufficient. Thursday’s summit, informal though it is, needs to be different.

EU leaders last gathered together in December. Since then, the Union has suffered two public humiliations. The first during the climate change meeting in Copenhagen where it was sidelined in negotiations on an issue where it considers itself a global leader.

Then US president Barack Obama indicated it wasn’t worth turning up to this Spring’s regular bilateral summit with the EU. That hurt. But not as much as the suspicion that he might have a point.

Those reminders that a union of 27 disagreeing member states is not considered a world force by other powers form the backdrop to this meeting.

So this summit needs to show the EU at its more coherent best. This would, at the very least be morale boosting, as well as sending an important wider political signal of general purposefulness. Something that has been missing for quite some time.

Which brings us to the Greece. Speculation has been mounting over recent weeks about whether other eurozone members will come to the rescue of the debt-ridden country. The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times today report German officials as saying help for Greek is being considered. ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet is attending the summit.

Given the build-up, a clear message on Greece needs to emerge from the meeting. This would calm jittery markets and send the signal that the EU is dealing its biggest ever test to its 16-member eurozone.

A second clear message is needed on the EU’s new ten-year economic strategy – originally the main reason for calling the summit. The last strategy was a glaring failure. This meeting is about sounding out opinions on how to make the next plan more concise and make member states stick to its goals – a contentious point to date. At the very least, a first agreement over policy objectives should be evident after the discussion.

The meeting is also a high stakes one for Van Rompuy personally. It is his first EU show. The former Belgian PM is regularly said to be a keen behind-the-scenes negotiator -  the main reason for his being picked to be EU president in the first place. The particular political and economic currents of today have turned the summit into a bruising first test of his talents at forging consensus.

He raised expectations further by being virtually invisible since taking up the job and by changing the summit venue. Instead of the usual meeting place (the dreary council building), EU leaders will meet in an old library nearby. This informal setting (with only one advisor allowed in a near-by room) is supposed to make leaders really talk to one another. And produce some ideas. Will they rise to the occasion?

However member states would sell a failed summit – probably by playing it down as an informal meeting – it would be shackled to Van Rompuy for the foreseeable future. Among those keenly watching from the sidelines to see if he will make a go of it is European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, fighting to keep himself and his institution relevant.