Post-Brexit EU in 'critical situation'
German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday warned that the EU faces a "critical situation", as European leaders sought to plot the bloc's post-Brexit future at a summit without Britain.
The 27 leaders -- minus British Prime Minister Theresa May -- gathered at Bratislava's towering castle overlooking the River Danube, determined to respond to the challenges of mass migration, security, globalisation and a stuttering economy.
The aim was to thrash out a "roadmap" of reforms during talks in the Slovak capital's towering hilltop castle, and a boat trip down the Danube.
Merkel said the bloc simply had to improve but her influence as leader of the EU's biggest economy has been undermined by her unpopular decision to open Germany's doors last year to nearly a million refugees.
"We are in a critical situation. We have to show with our actions that we can get better," Merkel said as she arrived at the special summit.
French President Francois Hollande, the other half of the EU's "power couple" with Merkel, was equally blunt.
"We face either break-up, weakening -- or we choose the opposite, together giving Europe a purpose," said Hollande, who has made common cause with Berlin on boosting EU defence cooperation.
EU President Donald Tusk had warned on the eve of the summit that leaders must "have a sober and brutally honest assessment of the situation."
The leaders want to launch a "Bratislava Process" of reforms at this summit, to be further discussed in Malta early next year and then agreed in Rome in March 2017 to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the EU.
The 27 leaders have insisted there will be no formal Brexit talks until Britain triggers the two-year divorce process and says what it wants.
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