Tuesday

19th Mar 2024

EU to lay out strategic plan after election shock

  • Leaders' dinner. Cameron (r) said: 'Brussels has gotten too big, too bossy' (Photo: consilium.europa.au)

EU leaders meeting in Brussels Tuesday (27 May) agreed the EU must be more strategic in its approach and clearer about the division of powers between local and European level.

At an informal meeting in Brussels, politicians had a first stock-taking since an EP vote at the weekend that shook up the traditional political order in several member states, including France, the UK, Spain, Denmark, Ireland, and Greece.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

With far-right, eurosceptic, and anti-establishment parties represented much more strongly in the incoming parliament, EU Council president Herman Van Rompuy said that voters sent a "strong message" which was at the "heart" of the meeting's dicussions.

He said the EU must set "strategic" priorities for the coming years, focusing on economic growth, jobs, a "more developed" economic and monetary union, climate change, and energy union.

Touching on migration – EU freedom of movement has caused some of the most heated debates in members states – Van Rompuy said "key freedoms" must be preserved "while ensuring security and fighting irregular migration, crime and fraud".

EU institutions have achieved "common understanding on what should best be done at European and what at national level" said Van Rompuy.

British leader David Cameron has led the reform-the-EU charge. On the way into the meeting he said: "The EU cannot just shrug off these [EU election] results and carry on as before.

"We need change that recognises that Brussels has gotten too big, too bossy, too interfering. We need more nation states, Europe only where necessary."

Van Rompuy plans to talk with EU leaders individually about what changes they think are needed and will turn their input into a "strategic agenda" paper to be discussed at another summit towards the end of June.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said: "A strong message is needed that we are shaping Europe so it becomes more functional, to better respond to the needs of people."

She also underlined France's key symbolic and political place in the EU, after French voters caused an earthquake by giving the lion's share of their ballots to Marine Le Pen's anti-EU, populist National Front party.

"France is defining for the EU and the eurozone. As Germans we have the utmost interest that France is on a successful track. I will do whatever I can for France to be on a growth track, otherwise it is not possible for the eurozone to regain its stability."

French President Francois Hollande noted that while the different member states had different voting results, the EU vote could be characterized by a rise in the number of eurosceptics and a low turnout.

He called the National Front's success a "trauma for France and for Europe" and said voters need to be listened to.

Borrell: 'Israel provoking famine', urges more aid access

70 percent of northern Gaza is facing famine, new data shows. There is one shower per 5,500 people, and 888 people per toilet. 'How can you live in these conditions?" asked Natalie Boucly of UNRWA at the European Humanitarian Forum.

Opinion

Potential legal avenues to prosecute Navalny's killers

The UN could launch an independent international investigation into Navalny's killing, akin to investigation I conducted on Jamal Khashoggi's assassination, or on Navalny's Novichok poisoning, in my role as special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, writes the secretary-general of Amnesty International.

Latest News

  1. Borrell: 'Israel provoking famine', urges more aid access
  2. Europol: Israel-Gaza galvanising Jihadist recruitment in Europe
  3. EU to agree Israeli-settler blacklist, Borrell says
  4. EU ministers keen to use Russian profits for Ukraine ammo
  5. Call to change EIB defence spending rules hits scepticism
  6. Potential legal avenues to prosecute Navalny's killers
  7. EU summit, Gaza, Ukraine, reforms in focus this WEEK
  8. The present and future dystopia of political micro-targeting ads

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersJoin the Nordic Food Systems Takeover at COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersHow women and men are affected differently by climate policy
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  5. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  6. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us