Speaking about his meeting with Mrs May, Mr Tusk told a summit press conference: “Prime Minister May was very open and honest with me”.
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“We will have our original positions, but we will not push it at the price of damaging the European Union”, he said.
His comments come after Downing Street poured cold water on claims that Mrs May told one of Brussels’ most senior figures that she wants to trigger the formal process to pull Britain out of the European Union early next year.
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven told CNBC that the Brexit vote was regrettable and was “a loss for the whole European Union but we have to work from that and show that we can unite”.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker highlighted that European leaders have agreed on contributing significantly to safeguarding the Bulgarian border with Turkey.
“It’s absolutely clear that our procedures, our rules, described very precisely in our treaties, are to protect our interests, of the 27 countries, not the leaving country”, Tusk told a news conference in Bratislava after the first meeting of European Union leaders with Britain after the June 23 Brexit referendum.
Bloomberg reports two anonymous officials close to Hammond as saying that he believes it is unrealistic to expect to be included in the single market, which gives United Kingdom banks important access to its continental clients after Brexit is completed.
“We haven’t come to Bratislava to comfort each other or even worse to deny the real challenges we face in this particular moment in the history of our community after the vote in the UK”, Tusk admitted.
European Council president Donald Tusk, who chaired the informal EU meeting in the Slovakian capital, added that Brexit negotiations must prioritise the interests of the 27 remaining countries of the bloc and “not the leaving country”.
In particular, leaders tried to find common ground on the best way to deal with the numbers of migrants coming into Europe, and how to deal with the after effects of several years of economic crisis.
But Europe is playing hardball and isn’t willing to budge on its core “free movement of people”. “There are more advantages than disadvantages in being a member state and we can achieve that”.
Summit host Robert Fico, the Slovak prime minister, also underlined that he and other east European leaders whose citizens make up much of the EU immigrant population in Britain would not let those people become “second class citizens”.
The issue of security was also key following deadly terror attacks in France and Belgium, and with the bloc facing its biggest migration crisis since World War II as refugees flee war in Syria and the Middle East.
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“We have to show with our actions that we can get better”, she said, noting a need for improvements in border security, the unified fight against terrorism and cooperation in defense and in job growth.
