EU seeks unity amid crises

European Union leaders yesterday celebrated the 60th anniversary of the bloc's founding treaties at a special summit in Rome in a symbolic show of unity despite Britain's looming departure.

Meeting without Britain, the other 27 member countries will endorse a declaration of intent for the next decade, on the Capitoline Hill where six founding states signed the Treaty of Rome on March 25, 1957.

EU President Donald Tusk and the prime ministers of Italy and Malta greeted the leaders as they arrived at the Renaissance-era Palazzo dei Conservatori next to the Forum, for a ceremony long on pomp and short on real politics.

"There will be a 100th birthday of the European Union," European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said in an interview with German television ahead of the summit.

The leaders had the words of Pope Francis ringing in their ears, after he warned on the eve of the summit that the crisis-ridden bloc "risks dying" without a new vision.

The Argentine pontiff urged the leaders at a personal audience in the Vatican City on Friday to show solidarity as an "antidote" to populist parties whose popularity has surged in Europe.

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.

But British Prime Minister Theresa May's absence, 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.

The Rome Declaration that the leaders will sign proclaims that "Europe is our common future", according to a copy obtained by AFP.

But mass migration, the eurozone debt crisis, terrorism and the rise of populist parties have left a bloc formed from the ashes of World War II searching for new answers. The leaders are deeply divided over the way forward almost before they have started.