How EU is facing RUPTURE as Brussels splits into SEPARATE power blocs
THE countries within the European Union (EU) are seemingly more divided than ever despite the bloc’s top apparatchiks constantly declaring “Europe is our common future”.
By JON ROGERS, EXCLUSIVE
Express.co.uk
Sat, Apr 15, 2017
While the rhetoric is of unity, clear divisions are apparent.
The latest alliance to flex its muscles has been the group of seven “Southern EU Countries”, which met recently in El Pardo Palace in Madrid, Spain.
Comprised of the Iberian countries, France, Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Malta – the group, meeting for the third time ever, set out its demands saying Brussels nations had to sort out “shared responsibility and solidarity” over migration policy – effectively calling for the northern countries to pull their weight in terms of both providing the finance necessary and taking their share of the migrants arriving in the bloc.
Spain’s prime minister Mariano Rajoy said a common migration policy was one of the top priorities for the group, and Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni declared the seven Southern European countries share “common geopolitical interests,” especially in terms of “migrant flows.”
Spain’s secretary of state for the EU Jorge Toledo said: “We’re the countries that spend the most resources… in border protection and we’re protecting the border of the whole EU, also that of the Northern European countries.”
That will put the group on collision course with East European countries in the bloc, especially the Visegrád countries – Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic – who are far more Eurosceptic, more negative towards mass immigration into the EU and against a centralised EU.
The Rest…HERE
