A summit of 28 European Union leaders has ended without an agreement on who should take on the bloc’s top jobs.
The talks, held in Brussels, continued until the early hours of Friday morning without candidates being finalised.
On top of trying to find majorities for successors, leaders were also trying to decide what issues the EU should prioritise over the next five years.
A new summit will now be held on 30 June – just two days before a key meeting of the European Parliament.
All of the bloc’s leading jobs are changing hands this year, following European-wide elections in May.
EU’s Strategic Agenda
Before they went on to discuss the top jobs over dinner, the summit adopted a strategic agenda for 2019-2024. It highlights:
- more intensive efforts to counter climate change
- measures to boost security on the EU’s external borders and control migration into the bloc
- more resources to fight disinformation and “hybrid threats” which undermine European democracy
- better co-ordinated industrial policy, research and investment targeting digital technologies.