Leaders from 16 of the European Union's member states gathered Sunday for an informal summit on migration in which they did not expect to come to any bloc-wide agreements, as issues on the Mediterranean raised tensions across the continent.

Their aim was to consolidate their views ahead of a European Council meeting on Thursday and Friday, in which all 28 member states are set to debate possible responses to the asylum-seekers crossing the Mediterranean into Europe. </s> The leaders of 16 European Union countries are set to meet to discuss solutions to the bloc's migration crisis, as the issue once again exposes major divides between EU members.

The talks in Brussels on Sunday, which European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker described as an "informal working meeting," come ahead of a crucial summit with all EU leaders scheduled for Thursday and Friday.

Recent disputes in Germany and Italy have brought the bitter debate on migration and asylum policy - which the EU has been trying to overhaul since the 2015 migrant crisis - back into focus in Europe.

Italy, where a new government took office recently, closed its ports last week to a boat carrying more than 600 migrants rescued in the Mediterranean Sea, in a message to other European states that Italy needs more help.

In Germany, meanwhile, Chancellor Angela Merkel is being challenged over her efforts to find European solutions to the migration issue, with her interior minister and long-time ally, Horst Seehofer, threatening to close the border to new arrivals.

The sensitivity over migration was on display again on Saturday, when Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini warned "arrogant" French President Emmanuel Macron that France would not "transform Italy into Europe's refugee camp."

Leaders of the so-called Visegrad group countries - Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic - will not attend the meeting, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said after the leaders of the four countries and Austria held a summit of their own on Thursday.

All four Visegrad countries fiercely oppose the EU scheme from 2015 to redistribute asylum seekers across the bloc. </s> Leaders of 16 European Union members are meeting in Brussels to discuss possible ways forward in a political crisis over migration which is causing deep rifts within the bloc.

Sunday's mini-summit was called by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker who billed it as an "informal working meeting" ahead of an important EU summit on migration policy scheduled for June 28 and 29.

The emergency meeting will be an opportunity for German Chancellor Angela Merkel to find possible solutions as she faces a domestic crisis, which is posing an existential threat to her three-months-old coalition government.

Merkel came under pressure last week when her interior minister Horst Seehofer threatened to unilaterally implement an immigration "master plan" the chancellor is opposed to.

She believes a measure in the policy to send migrants who have already registered elsewhere in the EU away at the German border goes against Europe's open border agreement.

Last Monday, Seehofer said he would give Merkel until after the EU summit later this week to come up with a European solution.

Merkel on Friday played down the importance of Sunday's meeting, calling it "no more and no less than a working and consultative meeting".

She was also pessimistic about the prospects of finding consensus among all EU members.

"We know that no solution will be reached on Thursday and Friday at the level of the 28 member states ... on the overall issue of migration" she told a press conference during a visit to Beirut, Lebanon.

Instead, the German chancellor expressed hope "bilateral, trilateral and multilateral" deals would be reached.

Disagreement over how to reform European migration policy was rife among leaders in the days leading up to the summit.

A main priority is reform of the Dublin regulation that determines that the state through which an asylum seeker enters the EU is the state responsible for their asylum application.

Redistribution of migrants through quotas received fierce opposition from some countries after it was first proposed in 2015.

Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini on Friday reiterated his hard line on immigration.

"We cannot take in one more person," he told German magazine Der Spiegel. "On the contrary; we want to send away a few."

In recent weeks, Italy's new government has prohibited ships carrying migrants rescued in the Mediterranean from docking in the country's ports.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte agreed to attend Sunday's meeting only after Merkel had assured him a draft leaders' statement prepared by the European Commission and circulated on Wednesday would be put aside.

There was tension between Italy and France too.

On Saturday, Salvini called French President Emmanuel Macron "arrogant" and warned that France would not "transform Italy into Europe's refugee camp".

The statement came after Macron had said he supported the idea of imposing financial sanctions on EU countries refusing to take in refugees and migrants with proven asylum status.

Speaking alongside Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Macron told a press conference "You can't have countries that massively benefit from the solidarity of the European Union and that massively voice their national selfishness when it comes to migrant issues."

On Thursday, Macron had said nationalism and anti-migrant sentiments were spreading in Europe like "leprosy".

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz on Saturday said he would reinstate border controls if Seehofer goes ahead with rejecting migrants at the German border.

The 31-year-old leader has been pushing for stronger European borders. He is set to take over the EU presidency, which is rotated every six months, on July 1.

The leaders of the Visegrad group countries, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, announced on Thursday they would be boycotting Sunday's summit altogether.

"We understand there are domestic political difficulties in some countries but that cannot lead to pan-European haste," Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in an apparent dig at Merkel.

Europe has struggled to formulate a joint migration policy since the 2015 refugee crisis saw the arrival of more than one million people.

But the current crisis comes amid a significant drop in the number of migrants and refugees arriving on Europe's shores.

The United Nations' refugee agency has said it expects about 80,000 people to arrive by sea this year, which is about half the number from 2017.

"We do not have a crisis of numbers. We continue to have a crisis of political will," AP news agency quoted UNHCR Europe chief Sophie Magennis as saying. </s> A ‘mini-summit’ of more than half of the European Union’s leaders appears doomed to end in frustration as the EU struggles to contain huge splits among its members over migration policy.

German leader Angela Merkel, whose political future is under threat unless she can wrest deals from her European counterparts on migration, has already conceded the mini-summit in Brussels on Sunday will bring no solution to the problem.

Mrs Merkel, on a visit to Lebanon on Saturday, also admitted that Thursday’s European Council summit of all 28 leaders would not solve the problem either.

She is now pinning her hopes on a series of bilateral, trilateral and multilateral deals with fiercely anti-migrant governments... </s> (Bloomberg) -- European Union leaders meet for a summit in Salzburg, Austria, with Brexit and migration on the agenda.

European Council President Donald Tusk told reporters on Wednesday that Brexit talks are entering a decisive phase and that at Thursday’s meeting he’ll propose an additional summit in mid-November.

“Some of Prime Minister May’s proposals from Chequers indicate a positive evolution in the U.K.’s approach as well as a will to minimize the negative effects of Brexit,” Tusk said. “On other issues, such as the Irish question, or the framework for economic cooperation, the U.K.’s proposals will need to be reworked and further negotiated.”

U.K. and EU Aim to Break Brexit Deadlock as Time Runs OutBritain’s Brexit Fixation Brings Other Government Work to a HaltInside Steve Bannon’s Plans for a New European Political OrderBrexit and the Path to a Deal: Here’s What to Expect in SalzburgWhy Hungary and Poland Rattle Europe’s Liberal Order: QuickTake

*Leaders attend party meetings from 4:30 p.m.*They go into dinner at about 6:30 p.m. CET and will answer reporters’ questions on the way in

--With assistance from John Follain, Katharina Rosskopf, Nikos Chrysoloras, Jonathan Stearns, Tim Ross and Boris Groendahl.

To contact the reporters on this story: Arne Delfs in Berlin at adelfs@bloomberg.net;Helene Fouquet in Paris at hfouquet1@bloomberg.net;Ian Wishart in Brussels at iwishart@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Emma Ross-Thomas at erossthomas@bloomberg.net, Richard Bravo </s> BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Britain and European Union political leaders have agreed in principle to a text setting out their future relationship that can be endorsed by EU leaders at a summit, European Council President Donald Tusk said on Thursday.

Referring to a text discussed on Wednesday by British Prime Minister Theresa May and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU summit chair said in a statement: “The Commission president has informed me that it has been agreed at negotiators’ level and agreed in principle at political level, subject to the endorsement of the leaders.”

The text was shared with the 27 other governments of the European Union on Thursday morning. </s> Leaders of the bloc gather in the Italian capital to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the EU's founding treaty.

European Union leaders are renewing their vows on the 60th anniversary of the troubled bloc's founding treaties at a special summit in Rome designed to show unity despite Britain's looming divorce.

 

Meeting on Saturday in the same Renaissance-era palace where six founding countries signed the Treaty of Rome on March 25, 1957, the 27 leaders minus Britain will endorse a declaration of intent for the next decade.

 

The ceremonial gathering in Rome began with an audience with Pope Francis who gave messages of solidarity in the Vatican on Friday evening.

"You are called on to blaze the path of a new European humanism," Francis told the leaders.

"When a body loses its sense of direction and is no longer able to look ahead, it experiences a regression and, in the long run, risks dying," he said.

The White House congratulated the EU overnight on its 60th birthday, in a notable shift in tone for President Donald Trump's administration, whose deep scepticism about the bloc has alarmed Brussels.

 

However, British Prime Minister Theresa May's absence from the summit, four days before she launches the two-year Brexit process, and a row over the wording of the Rome declaration underscore the challenges the EU faces.

Security is tight with snipers on rooftops, drones in the skies and 3,000 police officers on the streets as Italy takes no risks following an attack this week in London claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.

Around 30,000 protesters are expected to take part in four separate marches - both pro- and anti-Europe - throughout the day in the Italian capital. Police plan to stop all traffic and declare a no-fly zone.

 

The Rome Declaration that the leaders will sign proclaims that "Europe is our common future", according to a copy obtained by the AFP news agency, after a series of crises that have shaken its foundations.

RELATED: How will Brexit affect the European Union?

Mass migration, the eurozone debt crisis, attacks by armed groups and the rise of populist parties have left a bloc formed from the ashes of World War II searching for new answers.

Yet the leaders are deeply divided over the way forward almost before they have started.

 

Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo only agreed to sign the declaration at the last minute, after bitterly opposing a reference to a "multi-speed" Europe favoured by powerhouse states France and Germany, AFP said.

 

Poland, central Europe's largest economy, is concerned that as one of nine of the EU's current 28 members outside the eurozone, it could be left behind should countries sharing the single currency push ahead with integration.

 

Greece, the loudest voice against the austerity policies wrought by its three eurozone bailouts, meanwhile insisted that the document should mention social policies. </s> The European Union is celebrating its 60th anniversary in Rome

The heads of state and government of the EU countries are gathering in Rome to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome. The celebrations will begin at 9 a.m. on Saturday, March 25th, when the heads of state and government and the leaders of the EU institutions will arrive at the Palace of the Conservators, located on the Capitoline hill.

The ceremony will begin in the Hall of the Horatii and Curiatii at 10: the leaders will then sign the Declaration of Rome (around 11:30).

After the traditional “family photo” at noon, a press conference will be held: participants include Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat (who is currently the acting president of the EU), European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, and European Council President Donald Tusk.

The 13 heads of state and government and the leaders of the European institutions will then relocate to the Quirinal, where a luncheon will be held. The luncheon is being offered by Italian president Sergio Mattarella, in honor of the leaders participating in the celebration.

From Strasbourg, the European Parliament offered the following release:

Sixty years ago the leaders of the six founding member states gathered in Rome to put their signatures under the agreements that would create a European common market, but also pave the way for a union of peace and prosperity that has come to encompass most of our continent. Leading MEPs will join the anniversary celebrations in Rome this weekend, while heads of state and government will use the opportunity to deliberate on the next steps for the EU.

The Treaties of Rome were signed on 25 March 1957 by representatives of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. In two separate agreements, they agreed to establish a European Economic Community aiming to remove barriers to trade, and to foster cooperation in the use of atomic energy.

Economic integration, based on the removal of customs duties among member states and the promotion of free movement of goods, services, capital and people, proved such a success that more and more countries in Europe expressed their wish to join in the following years. Areas of cooperation broadened over time and this led to the creation of the European Union. The treaty on establishing the European Economic Community went through several updates and is now known as the Treaty on the functioning of the EU.

Parliament President Antonio Tajani, leaders of political groups, vice-presidents and quaestors travel to Rome today to hold meetings and take part in the celebrations over the weekend. Tajani will sign a common EU declaration on the anniversary on behalf of Parliament.

In recent weeks MEPs have been actively discussing how the EU should evolve to respond to challenges such as migration, economic imbalances and Brexit. MEPs adopted three reports on the future of Europe during the February plenary. During March's plenary session MEPs also discussed a European Commission strategy paper setting out five scenarios for EU. The heads of state will continue the debate in Rome.

During a ceremony in Brussels earlier this week, Tajani said: “Europe is our freedom, Europe is our future and that is what we should hand on to our children; a future of prosperity, of peace and of freedom.”

Meanwhile from Washington the White House Office of the Press Secretary released a statement congratulating the European Union on the sixtieth anniversary of the 1957 Treaties of Rome and the founding of the European Economic Community.

Our two continents share the same values and, above all, the same commitment to promote peace and prosperity through freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. Together we look forward to another sixty years and more of shared security and shared prosperity, the statement said. </s> Britain and European Union political leaders have agreed in principle to a text setting out their future relationship that can be endorsed by EU leaders at a summit, European Council President Donald Tusk said on Thursday.

Britain and European Union political leaders have agreed in principle to a text setting out their future relationship that can be endorsed by EU leaders at a summit, European Council President Donald Tusk said on Thursday.

Referring to a text discussed on Wednesday by British Prime Minister Theresa May and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU summit chair said in a statement:

"The Commission president has informed me that it has been agreed at negotiators' level and agreed in principle at political level, subject to the endorsement of the leaders."

The text was shared with the 27 other governments of the European Union on Thursday morning.
16 European Union leaders meet in advance of the 28 June full EU summit on migration.