EU leaders gather for summit to jumpstart stalling bloc

European Union leaders are gathered in a centuries-old castle in the middle of their fractious continent, hoping to find a sense of common goal again in the face of the planned departure of Britain and fundamental disagreements over everything from uncontrolled migration to the economy.

The 27 leaders, minus British Prime Minister Theresa May, hope their daylong talks in the Slovak capital will provide the broad outlines of a new “Bratislava roadmap” that should lead to a new-look European Union by next spring following the shock British referendum result in June.

The summit host, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, is one of a group of leaders in ex-communist central and eastern Europe who has led a vocal revolt against Brussels and Berlin over their willingness to take in refugees. Despite the result, Britain is still a member of the 28-country bloc and will in all likelihood remain so for at least two years to come.

Years of economic crisis have pushed up unemployment in many member states, while a spate of attacks by Islamist militants and a record influx of migrants have unsettled voters, who are turning increasingly to populist, anti-EU parties.

Leaders want the summit to begin a process of negotiations in the hope of agreeing further strategies when they meet in March in the Italian capital to mark the 60th anniversary of the Union’s founding Treaty of Rome. “We need to assure citizens that we’re able to bring back stability, sense of security, effective protection”, he said on his official Twitter account.

She immediately threw her country’s economic weight behind the planned reset.

“The first priority is security … our border security, our security against external threats”, Hollande said, highlighting the issue that has become central to his bid to overcome very bad poll ratings before a presidential election in April that is being fought against the backdrop of Islamist attacks in France.

Van Rompuy’s comments came on the eve of a summit of the remaining 27 European Union member states in the Slovakian capital Bratislava.

In a sign of the tensions over migration, Luxembourg’s foreign minister this week called for Hungary to be suspended from the bloc for treating refugees like “animals”. How to deal with the euro’s problems remains divisive – on one-side pro-austerity countries led by Germany, on the other more social-minded governments. “Differences are of all ages”.

“We can’t start our discussion. with this kind of blissful conviction that nothing is wrong, that everything was and is OK”, he added. “We have to make sure we can fix them”.