EU council chief says bloc must ‘get prepared’ for enlargement as leaders meet in Granada – Europe live | European Union

Asked if they believe Poland and Hungary will block the Granada summit declaration, a senior Polish official told the Guardian: “I think yes.”

Earlier, a senior EU diplomat said the two countries could end up blocking the Granada declaration “due to the migration part”.

You can’t just expand government, German chancellor says amid enlargement debate

Lisa O’Carroll

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, arrived at the EU summit setting out the first battle lines of what will be an intense and fraught debate about how the bloc can accommodate up to 10 new countries financially and politically.

He said the future of unanimous voting on foreign policy and taxation, which will be a more contested issue among smaller countries, would have to be addressed.

But he also suggested that EU members would have to give up their right to have the most powerful jobs in Brussels, the commissioner posts.

“After all, you can’t just almost always expand the government and invent new ministries,” he said talking about commissioners.

He added “a pragmatic solution” would also need to be found over the number of seats Germany has in parliament. Would it have to give up a number of places in what could be the world’s largest parliament.

“I am happy that we are discussing this early on, because it is quite obvious that many questions cannot easily be brought to a joint conclusion. That’s not too bad. We are all adults, so you also have to be able to discuss and resolve problems. But that needs to be discussed now,” he said.

He also called on the EU to deliver its 20-year-old promise to allow the Balkan states entry to the bloc.

Speaking in Granada today, European parliament president, Roberta Metsola, told reporters that for the first time in decades “there is a realistic possibility to find an agreement on our common rules on asylum and migration”.

“It is within reach,” she said. “How to do this: we need to hold the course, we need to keep calm heads and finalise our work on the asylum and migration pact,” she added.

“Election after election migration dominates our citizens’ concerns,” the president said. “And what we cannot let is this debate dominate and polarised yet another European elections campaign. Not saying it won’t happen, but the least we can do is that we can show on paper, on black and white, that we have addressed this issue from a legislative angle.”

Migration threatens to overshadow talks

Lisa O’Carroll

Migration threatens to once again overshadow a summit of EU leaders after the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, claimed that his country had been “raped” by other EU member states.

The strong language is not unusal for the populist leader who, along with Poland, frequently tries to block EU policy.

Although the EU member states have already agreed two rounds of migration laws, one in June, and one as recently as Wednesday, Orbán questioned their legitimacy insisting the decisions need to be unanimous.

“There is no agreement on immigration because previously we decided that migration will be regulated on a unilateral agreement basis, which was changed [at the] last meeting. Poland and Hungary [were] not satisfied with the proposal, but they … pushed through the proposal, so Hungary and Poland [were] totally left out of that. So after this, there is no any chance to have any kind of compromise and agreement on migration,” he said.

“Politically,” the prime minister said, “it’s impossible” to get a deal on migration “for the next years”.

“Legally we are [were] – how to say it – we are [were] raped. So if you are raped, legally, forced to accept something what you don’t like, how would you like to have a compromise and agreement? It’s impossible,” he said.