While not on the agenda, Britain’s decision to leave the EU hung over the meeting, reinforced by the absence of British Prime Minister Theresa May. But the 27 leaders attending talks in the Slovak capital Bratislava had plenty of other divisive issues to discuss: migration, a common European defense policy, worrying unemployment and the anemic state of the economy, AP reported.
In the end, the leaders committed to have a clear roadmap of the way ahead and some practical results when they meet in late March to mark the 60th anniversary of the EU founding Treaty of Rome in the Italian capital.
“Europe can, must move forward, as long as it has clear priorities: protection, security, prosperity and the future of the youth,” said French President Francois Hollande in a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Merkel called the current situation in the EU “critical”, not only because Britain voted in June to leave the EU, the first ever member to do so.
She noted the migration crisis and economic problems that have fed growing disenchantment with the EU among many member states. Still, she said there was a common willingness to bounce back beyond the many issues that divide and even anger individual EU nations.
EU Council President Donald Tusk agreed, saying the mood in the EU now was “sober but not defeatist”.
Still, comments by some leaders as they left the meeting suggested hard work ahead.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the staunchest opponent of liberal EU migration policies, again blamed Germany for refusing to set limits on migrant arrivals under Merkel. Unless Berlin caps arrivals, he said, the flood will continue “because everyone sees ... that there is a place in Europe where the good life can be achieved, where they are welcomed and where their needs are taken care of”.
Orban said Hungary should be praised instead of criticized for erecting a razor-wire barrier at its southern borders, according to Financial Tribune.
“Our job is to stop at the Hungarian border the negative consequences of the suction effect of German domestic politics,” he said.
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 the EU headquarters in Brussels.