Updated: Lightning EU leaders’ summit to discuss Europe 2020 strategy

According to the draft agenda, further to its conclusions of the25/26 March 2010 EU Summit, the European Council will adopt EUROPE 2020 - the new European strategy for jobs and growth.

In particular, the Council will be invited to endorse politically the Integrated Guidelines; finalise the headline targets in the fields of education and social inclusion/poverty reduction; assess the work done on the national targets to be set by the Member States; and assess ongoing work on the bottlenecks constraining growth.

In this connection, EU leaders will have a discussion on how the Union can “best face the pressing challenges of competitiveness and raising growth levels”.

EU leaders will also take stock of discussions on how to further enhance the coordination of economic policies, taking into account the Commission's communication of 12 May 2010 and the launch of the Task Force.

During this lightning summit, EU leaders will also set the Union's position for the G 20 Toronto Summit. In particular, they will promote ongoing efforts aimed at strengthening financial regulation and supervision within the EU and beyond.

EU leaders will also discuss preparations for the UN High-level Plenary Meeting on the Millennium Development Goals.

Finally, the Commission will present its forthcoming communication on climate change, providing EU leaders with an opportunity for first reactions in particular as regards Europe's ambitions for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as well as the related issue of competitiveness.

The European Council will also hear a presentation by the Chairman of the Reflection Group it established in December 2007 launched by Van Rompuy himself.  In fact, the Task Force has already met twice and prepared an initial report.

A senior EU official was quoted as saying that there was a “high level of convergence” among EU Member States for measures to improve economic governance.

There seemed to be agreement on improving mutual surveillance of national budgets by submitting draft budgets to the Commission and the Council in the spring.

“This would allow the Commission and other countries to comment on and possibly suggest changes to budget plans to make sure they were in line with the EU's targets on debt and deficit levels and did not adversely affect other countries,” a report in the Brussels-based press explained.

An EU official played down the UK’s resistance to submit its budget plans to the Commission beforehand, saying that member states were only required to submit the “broad” outlines of their budgets.

According to draft conclusions for the summit leaked to the press, governments will agree on the need for sanctions for breaching the limits on deficits and debts.

Some sanctions, including losing EU funds for economic development, already existed but had never been applied because of a reluctance to punish Member States having difficulties with their finances.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel had been pushing to strip irresponsible member states of their voting rights in the Council of Ministers, a move that would require treaty change.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said after a meeting with Merkel in Berlin this week that he was prepared to support treaty change if it was needed.

But a new round of treaty change was “strongly opposed by many EU governments because of the difficulties in getting the Lisbon treaty into force”.

Van Rompuy's taskforce will continue to meet to discuss other aspects of economic governance and will present its final report in October.

EU leaders will also be invited to endorse the Council's conclusions on the evaluation of the implementation of the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum.

The Summit started at 10 am with a meeting of EU leaders with European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek, followed by a family photo at 10.15 am.

Following a press conference by the EP President, the three-hour working session started at 10.30, followed by another three-hour working lunch ending at around 16.15.

This will be followed by a press conference by Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council, and Jose’ Luis Zapatero, holder of the six-month rotating presidency of the EU at 16.30.

Maltese Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi left Malta on Wednesday afternoon left Malta for Brussels to attend the EU Summit. He is accompanied by Malta’s EU Permanent Representative, Richard Cachia-Caruana.

Earlier on Wednesday, Gonzi attended a meeting of the European People’s Party (EPP) at Bouchot Castle in Meize.

He was expected to return to Malta on later on Thursday.