Collective defense is suddenly a hot topic at EU summit

She declared it is nearly impossible to trigger Article 50 this year.

“She declared that it’s nearly impossible to trigger Article 50 this year but it’s quite likely that they will be ready maybe in January maybe in February next year”. Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty is the formal mechanism for leaving the bloc.

The EP president said such criticism of Brussels at the national level is “detrimental” to the entire European Union community, and he expects the summit in Bratislava to lead to closer cooperation between member states for the benefit of their citizens.

The EU official, however, added that the rest of the EU was willing to start negotiations as early as the next day.

“That’s what we were saying from the start”, he said, referring to Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic – known together as the Visegrad Group. “But we respect the needs of our British colleagues.Our British colleagues need more time to prepare themselves”. Bratislava is the first summit during which we discussed the common European Union future of 27 States, without the UK.

Speaking at an informal EU summit in the Slovakian capital, Bratislava, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker insisted Britain can not get access to the European single market without accepting the free movement of workers.

Slovak Prime Minister and summit co-host Robert Fico said that “we all want to show unity and we all want to show that this is a unique project and we need to continue”. Our position is clear.

The severity of the EU’s threats has already forced Fox to delay negotiating a trade deal with the US.

Mr Juncker said: “There’s a clear interlink as we made clear since the very beginning between the access to the internal market and the basic principles of the internal market, mainly the one of the freedom of movement of workers”. We can not see any possibility of compromise on this issue.

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