“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.
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But EU countries are deeply divided over how to bolster growth and respond to the influx of migrants.
“Brexit” won’t be discussed, though European leaders have acknowledged the European project is facing an existential crisis following the U.K.’s vote in June.
“Everyone is aware of the situation”.
The Brussels chief’s warning came as European Union leaders discussed the future of the bloc in Bratislava in the wake of the UK’s sensational Leave vote, the eurozone crisis and escalating migrant chaos.
Leaders want the summit to launch a process that ends with agreements when they meet in March in the Italian capital to mark the 60th anniversary of the bloc’s founding Treaty of Rome.
But because of divisions on some of the biggest issues, leaders are expected to stick to areas of common ground.
“Europe should stop sleepwalking in the wrong direction”.
“We need to adopt formal decisions on the matters mentioned above, as well as on other topics at the next summit of the European Council in October and December”, said Tusk in his letter before the summit. “It was in a good atmosphere”. “I asked them not to do this anymore because the nation-states can not accept it”.
Even though the UK’s referendum result is not on the agenda, and British Prime Minister Theresa May is not attending the summit, there is little doubt that Brexit will overshadow the meeting.
Immigration and the control of Europe’s borders is one of the key issues for discussion, as is combating terrorism – particularly in the wake the Paris and Brussels attacks.
But some officials admit in private that major initiatives may not be possible until elections in the Netherlands, France and Germany are out of the way by late 2017. The clashes over economic policies have created political turmoil in other states just as they have in France, Austria and Italy as defenders of economic reforms in these European countries call for a shift in Eurozone budget discipline.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, addressing reporters as she arrived for the summit, said the bloc was in a “critical situation”.
Upon her arrival for a summit in the Slovakian capital of Bratislavato on Friday, Merkel said the European Union has been facing so many problems that can not be resolved at one meeting.
The refugee emergency has been particularly divisive and Orban has been one of the most abrasive voices as he makes common cause with other countries to the East – Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland – to oppose solutions coming out of European Union headquarters in Brussels.
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The Visegrad Four, which groups Slovakia with Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, largely holds the same view.
