Bratislava will host the EU summit on Friday. This will the first time the summit will be hold outside of Brussels since 2010. Sme writes, however, that it is not yet clear if EU leaders will be able to find consensus on at least some of the controversial topics that have recently split Europe, including Brexit, the immigration crisis and consequences stemming from the economic crisis that some of the member states have not yet overcome. One off-record source told the press that EU leaders “attempt to set up the lowest possible denominator to show that the EU is not divided, but they are not even able to agree on that.
When planning the summit, EU heads expected the discussion would revolve around Brexit. But the UK has not yet activated Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty. Southern countries, most seriously affected by the economic crisis, want to discuss removal of austerity measures, but Germany and the rest of Europe rejects the idea. And Visegrad contries are clashing with Germany over immigration. Sme writes that the leaders will probably agree on nothing, but will only try to smooth the edges dividing the member states.
