At the meeting of the European Council of 22-23 June, EU leaders welcomed the encouraging return to economic growth to all 28 Member States, underlined the importance of the Union’s comprehensive strategy on migration and committed to stepping up work on defence and security.
Speaking of the Commission’s concrete proposals on defence, President of the European Commission Juncker said at yesterday’s press conference: “The proposal to create a Defence Fund is necessary — because in Europe we have 178 types of weapon systems, whereas the U.S. have 30. […] there is room for improvement and that is exactly what we decided today.”
Today, EU Heads of State or Government also discussed how to unlock the potential of the Single Market, as well as trade and industry, while ensuring that the benefits reach all parts of society. Speaking at today’s press conference,
President Juncker underlined the improving economic situation in Europe: “We have good news. Unemployment is going down, employment is improving, growth is picking up, […] The fiscal deficit is decreasing: in 2011, we had 24 countries in the Excessive Deficit Procedure, we are left now with four countries. This is a tremendous achievement […]”
President Juncker also called on Member States to step up their contributions to the EU-Africa Trust Fund and reiterated that trade needs to be free, but fair.
Today, the Commission published first key findings of the Standard Eurobarometer Survey. These show that today, almost half of Europeans believe the economic situation is good in their country (while it was only 20% back in 2009) and that optimism is on the rise regarding the Future of the Union (56% say they are optimistic which is +6 percentage points up in the last 6 months).
