Outcome of European Council meeting of 9 March 2017 and of informal meeting of the EU27 of 10 March 2017

Briefing 14-03-2017

After re-electing Donald Tusk as its President, the European Council meeting of 9 March 2017 discussed the economic situation in Europe, progress on measures regarding migration, internal and external security, and external relations. In his first speech to the European Council, the recently- elected President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, outlined his approach to appearing before European Council meetings, he will present the positions of the European Parliament, including minority views. He stressed his commitment to ‘fair and constructive cooperation’ between the two institutions, stating that ‘Parliament will be part of the solution, not part of the problem’. In the end, the meeting produced ‘Conclusions by the President of the European Council supported by 27 Member States, ’ due to a lack of consensus ‘for reasons unrelated to its [i.e. the documents] substance’. At the informal meeting of the 27 Heads of State or Government without the UK (EU27), held the following day, leaders discussed the procedural and content-related aspects of the forthcoming celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the Rome Treaties and the expected ‘Rome Declaration’.