EU leaders except Britain are to discuss on Friday Britain’s exit from the European Union and deeper integration of the euro zone after a deal on migration reached in the small hours. Below are the leaders’ comments before the start of the talks in Brussels on Friday.“Overall, we are protecting better, we are cooperating more and we are reaffirming our principles… All the rushed solutions of nationalism or of betraying our principles, which consisted of pushing back people in third countries, have been explicitly distanced.” “It is for me a great satisfaction and a victory. Europe decided, even if it takes her time. Europe wants to protect its citizens but also wants to live up to its laws and its history and the protection of the most vulnerable.”
“We decided to have a holistic approach speaking about third countries, external borders and internal challenges and I think that is the second very positive outcome.”“Our job is not done not even today and we looking forward to receive a new mandate to continue working on very important topics. We need to make sure our job is not only done at the euro level, we need to continue working at home on the legacy of the crisis. This means reducing NPLs, reducing debt, unemployment, and promoting policies that increase our GDP, competitiveness so that each country and the euro area as a whole can progress.
But also at the euro area level we need to continue looking at the toolkit for the ESM to bring new instruments to the ESM, to fight crisis in Europe, we also need to discuss the roadmap to the political discussions on EDIS and certainly and we will continue to discuss new elements added to our agenda more recently, namely those related to the euro area budget. This is very important day fort euro area and I hope we can deliver today.”
