Not even threat of war stopped EU summit becoming a talking shop

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What’s extra, it's not clear that any of these plans shall be able to be signed off when the 27 leaders subsequent meet in Brussels on the finish of October. Questions nonetheless hold over every of the insurance policies and there was inadequate time to work by way of them, stated the three diplomats and officers.

European Council President António Costa, who chaired the assembly, stated that the session had been urgently wanted “to organize selections for the safety of our continent” and that leaders wanted be able to agree them in simply three weeks.

Officers instantly performed down the probabilities of the summit ever resulting in concrete outcomes. “There was by no means an expectation there could be a call on these items in a single day — they're advanced points that contact on nationwide sovereignty,” stated a fourth official briefed on the leaders’ discussions.

‘They're testing us’

Nonetheless, the indecision stood in stark distinction to the menace. Whilst leaders debated the problem, Germany — whose chancellor, Friedrich Merz, lambasted the drone wall within the room — was compelled to substantiate that drone sightings had been reported over its personal essential infrastructure.

A second half on the agenda specializing in assist for Ukraine was delayed and squeezed into only one closing hour.

Costa was because of current much-vaunted plans, first reported by POLITICO, to streamline EU guidelines to hurry up Kyiv’s accession course of and circumvent Hungarian Prime Minister’s Viktor Orbán’s veto. The push barely had time to be talked about, two of the officers stated — although Orbán discovered time to blast it anyway.

“We meet at a time wherein Russia has intensified its assaults in Ukraine,” Denmark’s Frederiksen instructed reporters after the summit. “They're threatening us, and they're testing us, and they won't cease.”