Subscribe
EU leaders are meeting in Brussels where they will address the military escalation in the Middle East and the situation in Iran, including its consequences on the EU in terms of energy prices and energy security. The leaders will also discuss the EU’s strategic competitiveness, the next multiannual financial framework, security and defence and migration. “A discussion primarily on competitiveness. That will be my first point where we will ask for targeted deadlines, legislation that has content that can deliver to what our citizens are asking for right now, to what our industrial representatives and businesses need to grow and be competitive in Europe. I will also say that speed cannot come at the cost of democracy or legitimacy. Parliament will never be a rubber stamp and therefore we take our role as co-legislator extremely seriously as we’ve always done, but more importantly than ever now as we go into this very high intensity legislative phase”, said President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola.
“2026 is the European Year of Competitiveness and today the leaders will focus on competitiveness. Boost economic competitiveness is essential to increase our economic growth, to create quality jobs, but is also essential to increase our strategic autonomy. And today we will deliver in our one Europe, one market agenda as we promised some weeks ago in our retreat in Alden Biesen. The 28th regime, now so-called the EU Inc. is a very good first step, but we need to continue. We need to integrate energy and telecommunications sector in the single market. We need to pursue our simplification agenda, and we need to invest more on innovation”, said President of the European Council António Costa.
“We have a long agenda today, of course, very important topics like energy and single market, but from my competences it is of course what is happening in the Middle East and Ukraine. So first on the Middle East, Iran’s attacks on Qatar energy infrastructure create further chaos and it’s clear that we need an exit from this war, not an escalation. And that’s why I’ve been also doing the diplomatic outreach to Iran to find different solutions, to be very clear. I have talked to the minister before the execution of the Swedish citizen, so I was not able to raise that, but in my future calls I will definitely do that, also raise all the issues that we have”, said Kaja Kallas, the EU’s chief diplomat.