EU calls for a summit in the fall with the rest of the continent for a strategic alliance "from Iceland to Ukraine"

BRUSSELS, June 24 (EUROPA PRESS) -

Next autumn, the Heads of State and Government of the European Union will invite the rest of the leaders of the European continent to a summit in the Czech Republic to create a new political community "from Iceland to Ukraine", both a forum for discussion and a platform for geostrategic alliances without the need to expand the community bloc.

"This framework will not replace the existing policies and instruments of the EU, especially that of Enlargement, and will fully respect the autonomy of the EU in decision-making," according to the text of conclusions adopted by the European leaders meeting in Brussels this Thursday. and Friday.

The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, was the first to propose this idea and he was criticized by those who saw a way to definitively park the European enlargement project, but Paris has insisted that it is something necessary in order not to lose the bridges with those who they do not manage to integrate the club and that, in any case, it will be a "complementary, not an alternative" platform.

Although the leaders are preparing for a first summit last summer, they have not advanced more details about the structure of this community or the criteria for its operation or who to lead it.

"We will do the opposite of what is normally done and does not work, which is to build entities before knowing where we want to go or who will be around the table," Macron defended at a press conference at the end of the European Council.

For this reason, France and the Czech Republic, which next week will take over the rotating presidency of the EU, will work hand in hand with the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, to shape the forum in which issues will be discussed of common and strategic interest, such as economy or security.

The new platform will be open "to all those who want to get involved" in discussions of "general interest" and will invite "from Iceland to Ukraine", said Macron, without specifying more but pointing to "countries that have recently left the EU, that aspire to to become a member or which countries have a European perspective". Ukraine, North Macedonia and Albania will also be invited, he said.

"We have to be honest, we don't all have a vocation to share the same house but we do have the same street, we have a geographical Europe with common values, we don't have the same standards of rule of law, we have situations that are far apart in economic and social terms that they do not allow the Single Market, but we must be able to strengthen strategic ties," the French president reasoned on Thursday in another appearance.

Macron also recalled that in the past he wanted to go "further and failed", to explain that Russia is not contemplated, while explaining that the first objective is to "ritualise" contacts at the level of leaders of the continent to "progressively structure" the project.