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”.
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May’s office has said that Brexit would not be launched this year, but appeared to challenge Tusk’s account of his talks with the PM.
It comes as Mrs May is preparing to negotiate with the EU’s other 27 member states on the terms of Britain’s exit from the Brussels bloc.
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.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who is hosting the summit, said all wanted unity but a “very honest” exchange of views was needed to make that possible.
“I’m absolutely sure that we have the same vision because what we need first of all in Europe today is good cooperation, solidarity and this political will to cooperate among member states”.
It is not understood whether the United Kingdom would remain as a member of the single market.
In Eastern Europe, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia meanwhile oppose taking in more migrants and believe nation states are the future of the European Union, not a centralised super-state.
“All these countries have an interest in fighting terrorism, in a more secure Europe, in preventing uncontrolled migration, all have an interest in economic cooperation to create more jobs”, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said.
“I’m absolutely sure that, after Bratislava, we have to assure our citizens that we have learned the lesson from Brexit”, Tusk said.
Fico said the European Union leaders would like to show unity in the Bratislava summit and prepare a road map to design the way forward for the European Union, which would address the concerns of its citizens.
With security making the headlines and people traumatised by deadly terror attacks, leaders put the focus on boosting European Union defence cooperation – an issue Britain was lukewarm on at best as it feared it would undercut North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
“European armed forces are out of the question; we can not afford to overlap NATO”, Grybauskaite told the Bratislava media on Friday.
Merkel said that European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker’s speech before the European Parliament would be the “blueprint’ on which the EU would work over the next few months”.
Mr Juncker said: “There is a clear interlink as we made clear at the very beginning between the access to the internal market and the basic principles of the internal market – namely the free movement of workers and we are sticking to that position”.
French president Francois Hollande issued a rallying cry to other members on his arrival to the conference.
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Prime minister May or her spokesperson has yet to confirm Tusk’s comments to the press.
