EU President Donald Tusk said on the summit eve that the leaders must “have a sober and brutally honest assessment of the situation”.
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The Leaders of the European Union gathered on Friday in Slovakia’s capital Bratislava to discuss the critical juncture of the weakened Union beleaguered by challenges of mass migration chaos, security, defense, and economy.
Diplomats said a busy morning of talks in Bratislava’s hilltop castle had remained civil and constructive in analyzing what was wrong.
– Never to allow for the return of uncontrolled refugee flows of past year and to ensure full control of our external border to get back to Schengen. As Juncker said, the country would soon receive the €160 million it has been requesting to secure its borders.
France and Germany have swung behind plans for a common European defence headquarters and shared military hardware, and EU leaders have now promised to agree a common plan by December.
Nothing in the Bratislava Declaration concerns the UK.
European Union leaders are crafting a new vision for the future of their bloc at “honest and frank” talks in Bratislava about the causes of public disillusionment and Britain’s shock decision to withdraw.
Fico said Saturday that the V4 countries will be “uncompromising” in the deal, “unless we feel a guarantee that these people [living and working in Britain] are equal, we will veto any agreement between the European Union and Britain”.
But in a warning shot to Britain’s Brexit negotiators he warned they would “protect the interests of the 27, not the leaving country” in negotiations.
European Council President Donald Tusk said the prime minister told him during their meeting at Downing Street last week that she would be ready to trigger Article 50 to begin Brexit by February. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told his Italian counterpart this week that early-2017 was a probable start date, according to an official familiar with the conversation.
“We talked very concretely about what we are going to do to tackle issues like immigration”, Mrs Merkel said. Brexit negotiations should “not damage our interests” and must show “it is worth being a member of the European Union”, he said. I can add further objectives.
On the migration front, a “large majority” of leaders have pledged to deploy guards and equipment to the border between Bulgaria and Turkey, as part of efforts to clamp down on migrant flows, the European Union official said.
At the same news conference, Mr Fico underlined that he and other Central European leaders whose citizens make up much of the EU migrant population in Britain would not let those people become “second class citizens”. “We all want to show unity and that we want to continue with this project”. “You can’t just pick the best items and have just what suits you”, he said. The EU, a bloc of 500 million people, has been under siege since the 2008 global financial crash.
“It’s about the rights of ordinary people and workers, of those living in Europe, and so I can’t see any possibility of compromising on that very issue”. “We have this link between the internal market and the principles of the internal market”, he explained. “There are different views, different ideas”, he said. He explained that the Bratislava summit was an informal one, because legally the United Kingdom is still a member and the 27 can not decide anything without it.
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It is to note here the formal negotiations could only begin after the Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty is triggered. “We hope that the Bratislava roadmap can set a new direction for the next six months”.
