EU leaders intend to develop road map of actions at summit

By Azernews

By Gunay Hasanova

Leaders of the 27 EU countries without the UK plan to prepare a road map in the spheres of migration, security, and economy at an informal meeting in Bratislava on September 16, which must be ready until the EU summit to be held in March 2017 in Rome.

The upcoming summit was called after the referendum in the UK where the vote of withdrawal from the EU won with a small margin.

The purpose of the meeting is not to discuss the further details of negotiations regarding the UK leaving the EU but to talk about the future of remaining EU countries, RIA Novosti reported.

“The political agenda of the day for the upcoming months may be defined at the Bratislava summit,” said a source close to the EU leadership.

Since the meeting will be informal, it is not expected to take any specific decisions regarding the different aspects of EU life.

However, the leaders plan to put an “honest diagnosis” on the situation in EU on the background of the desire of citizens to leave the union faced during the British referendum.

The source says that the diagnosis should be put on what really works in the EU and what not, as well as, what should be improved.

“Tusk understands that we cannot isolate ourselves from reality with the optimistic views about the future of the EU. He is convinced that in order to be successful, the EU first needs, to be honest about what it lacks”, said the source.

The Head of the European Council Donald Tusk noted that the purpose of the informal meeting in Bratislava and the process that will start there is to return hope and stability to union shaken by many crises.

There are a few political conditions for this. The first is the restoration of confidence, and especially citizens' confidence in the European Union not the trust of countries to each other and EU institutions. The second condition is to demonstrate the ability to regain control of the political processes that undermined that trust, said the source.

Tusk considers that the key political processes where the EU needs to regain control are massive. Such as the uncontrolled influx of migrants for such a long time, growing security threats related to terrorism, as well as, economic and social uncertainty, reports the source.

Tusk noted that the main outcome of the meeting will be the plan of specific actions in various spheres starting from migration and security to the investments that EU countries need to implement until the March summit of EU leaders in Rome.

"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.

The EU and Russia relations won’t be discussed at the summit. A political discussion will be devoted to this question at the summit of 28 EU countries in October.

Recently, German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that the European Union is in a critical condition, adding that it needs to show its ability to change in practice.

"We are in a critical situation. It is  necessary to take actions to show that we can get better on security issues, combating terrorism, defense cooperation, economic growth and the labor market," she said.

Commenting on Bratislava summit, she also stressed that one should not expect to solve all problems during the meeting, adding that they will discuss the Bratislava declaration and find the ways to agree on it.

Moreover, German Chancellor said that the EU Heads of State and Government will discuss the issues of migration and combat the causes of migration crisis on September 16.

"All these will be worked out until the end of the year and we want to make concrete progress until the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome in March 2017,” Merkel said.

The European Union is an economic and political partnership involving 28 European countries, which after the Second World War fostered economic co-operation, with the idea that countries which trade together are more likely to avoid going to war with each other.

It has since grown to become a "single market" allowing goods and people to move around, basically as if the member states were one country.