Wednesday, October 14, 2015

The situation in Syria, where Russia is openly supporting Bashar Al-Assad's regime against insurgents and violating the air space of Nato-member Turkey, should be addressed by EU leaders. The issue will already have been the main topic of discussion at Monday's meeting of foreign ministers. The summit agenda also includes a discussion on the Economic and Monetary Union, a few days before the European Commission publishes its proposals on micro-economic governance, competitiveness and the eurozone's social dimension.  Ahead of a more concrete discussion at the December summit, EU leaders will be informed about the technical discussions between the EU and the UK on reforms demanded by British prime minister David Cameron.
The EU Council will be preceded by the biannual tripartite social summit, which gathers EU leaders and business and trade union leaders to discuss the economic and social situation in the EU.
On Wednesday (14 October), EU migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos will visit Turkey, a week after president Erdogan's visit to Brussels and the publication of an EU Commission action plan.  Although the plan was agreed by Turkey before it was published, details still have to be discussed, in particular the use of €1 billion the Commission wants Turkey to use to deal with the refugee crisis and which Turkey wants to use as part of the accession process, that the money was originally earmarked for.

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