Brexit negotiations will ‘protect interests’ of EU — EU bosses

“We want to have very good, very close relation with the UK”, Mr Juncker told a news conference, but Europe was “sticking its position”, he said, adding: “I can not see any possibility of compromising on that issue”.

United Kingdom exit negotiations are expected to start in early 2017 and to last at least two years, with the United Kingdom retaining its full rights in the EU Council during that period.

The roadmap produced by the summit had limited measures on beefing up the EU’s border force particularly on Bulgaria’s border with Turkey, and measures to work together on terrorism and economic growth. As Juncker said, the country would soon receive the €160 million it has been requesting to secure its borders.

At an end of the summit on Friday, Mr Fico said that he and other Central European leaders whose citizens make up much of the EU migrant population in Britain would not let those people become “second class citizens”.

Defence secretary Sir Michael Fallon also spoke out this week to block proposals for an EU army while Britain remains a member of the union.

Nothing in the Bratislava Declaration concerns the UK.

“If someone is interested in the European Union benefits, it has to guarantee all the freedoms that are important for the European Union”, he said. “I mean the interests of the 27 countries, not the leaving country”.

The EU leaders will not formally discuss Brexit negotiations, with the rest of Europe impatiently waiting for frozen-out British Prime Minister Theresa May to trigger the two-year divorce process and set out its demands for a future relationship.

Merkel said the European Union leaders had agreed that illegal migration had to be stopped and that more agreements with partners such as Turkey needed to be explored.

In the document discussed by leaders yesterday, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker commits Brussels to a three-point plan for creating the army.

The response to Tusk will add to the confusion surrounding the UK’s withdrawal from Europe, with no clear signal on whether the country intends to stay in the single market or not. We will not allow this negotiation to damage our interest.You can not get away from the feeling that such negotiations run the risk of creating second-class citizens in the UK. “This is clearly about domestic politics”, one senior official said. There are more advantages than disadvantages being a member state.

“We can achieve this”. Regarding freedoms, he was referring to the free movements of goods, workers, services and capital. “I think Britain knows this is an issue for us where there’s no room for compromise”.

Theresa May has so far refused to guarantee the status of European Union nationals in the UK.

The ambitions of the Bratislava summit can be summed up in three words: unity, unity and unity. This process will only start once Article 50 is triggered but this has not happened yet.

“The only thing we can do is to respect their will”.