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EU Leaders Meet for So-called Summit of Gloom

Jamie Dettmer

   It has been dubbed the summit of gloom.

   For the next two days, the European Union's 27 national leaders will
   meet in Brussels and try to reach agreement on a series of thorny
   issues, from the bloc's future trading relationship with post-Brexit
   Britain to an ambitious climate action plan to reduce carbon emissions
   and achieve "climate neutrality" by 2050.

   They will also discuss how to coordinate the bloc's coronavirus
   pandemic response. Breakthroughs on all of these issues are not likely.

   The EU's increasingly fraught relations with Russia and Turkey will
   also be discussed.

   Navalny poisoning

   On the eve of the summit, Russia threatened to break ties with the bloc
   amid an intensifying diplomatic dispute over the poisoning of Alexei
   Navalny, President Vladimir Putin's biggest domestic foe. Sergey
   Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, issued the warning after the EU's
   top diplomats agreed Monday to impose new sanctions on Moscow in
   response to the alleged Kremlin-sponsored plot to kill Navalny.

   The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the poisoning.

   First up on the agenda will be a discussion about the bloc's future
   relations with Britain -- and the failure so far to reach consensus on
   a post-Brexit trade deal. Midweek, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson
   expressed "disappointment" at the lack of progress in the monthslong
   fractious talks among his aides and EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier.
   Disagreements over fishing rights in British territorial waters,
   security cooperation and limits on state subsidies to British business
   have all held up a deal.

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