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European Union leaders call for more Europe despite populist backlash

Merkel spoke Wednesday after talks with Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Roivas – part of her European tour ahead of an EU summit in Bratislava, Slovakia, next month.

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German politicians on Wednesday criticised Chancellor Angela Merkel for saying that people with a Turkish background who live in Germany should show “loyalty to our country”, calling her comment unnecessarily divisive at a particularly hard time.

The aim of the European leaders was to lay the groundwork for the EU summit due to be be held in Bratislava in September.

Germany has agreed to take in hundreds of migrants who are blocked in Italy in a move that might revive the European Union’s failed relocation programme, Italy’s Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said on Tuesday.

Whatever the courageous rhetoric, the reality is that – as Francois Hollande, the French president noted – the forces of “fragmentation” are rising in Europe and (as he didn’t say) Britain’s vote for Brexit is adding a significant load to those centrifugal political forces. “That’s not the case”, Mr Renzi said.

Germany’s leader has urged Britain to file a formal request to leave the European Union soon, even though the member states are prepared to give the United Kingdom time to decide its future ties with the bloc.

The 27 countries that will remain in the European Union after Britain leaves must listen to each other carefully and avoid rushing into policy decisions, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday.

Described generously by the AP as “a symbolic bid to relaunch the European project following Britain’s decision to leave the EU”, it is in truth the desperate act of globalist politicians to pull an increasingly unpopular institution out of its death throes.

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Britain has always blocked plans for a so-called “EU Army”, arguing that it would undermine North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as the cornerstone of European defence and (we don’t say out loud) our influence in Washington and at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation conference table.

Germany's Merkel calls for more EU sharing of intelligence information