Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaite shakes hands with European Council President Donald Tusk prior to a meeting in Vilnius last week | Petras Malukas/AFP via Getty Images Donald Tusk pushes ‘road map’ for EU future In Bratislava, EU needs to ‘show unity and bring back political control’ in response to ‘fears related to migration, terrorism, and globalization.’

European Council President Donald Tusk is preparing EU leaders (excluding Britain's Theresa May) for a distinctly non-Brexit themed Bratislava summit later this week, nudging them toward a broader strategy to address the political reality of an anxious and increasingly Euroskeptic public.

The priority at Friday's special one-day meeting on "Europe's future" in the Slovak capital is to “show unity and bring back political control” in response to “a perceived lack of control and fears related to migration, terrorism, and globalization,” according to the "press lines" drafted for the meeting by Tusk's staff and circulated to the 27 countries on Friday night.

The document, obtained by POLITICO, will be discussed at a meeting Monday in Brussels of the "sherpas," usually the chief EU advisers from national capitals, to prepare for Bratislava. Unlike at formal EU summits, the 27 gathered in Slovakia can't make any decisions or issue formal EU conclusions. Tusk wants to use Bratislava to forge a consensus on the steps ahead that can be articulated clearly, and start to prepare the EU to use next spring's 60th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome for a sort of reboot of the bloc.

The priorities of the remaining 27 countries differ starkly.

The "road map" for the EU pushed by Tusk's office echoes the president's oft-articulated views in recent months that the EU build its future around promising less but delivering more. That approach again sets up clear dividing lines between the ministers and national leaders taking Council decisions and the Juncker Commission’s firm view that more European coordination is needed on most of the big issues facing EU countries.

The priorities of the remaining 27 countries also differ starkly. The southern countries are more focused on economic struggles. For the northern and central European countries, migration and terrorism are the leading political concerns. The Tusk plan seeks to balance their competing interests, but it won't be easy to forge a consensus, at Bratislava and into the future.

For the past few weeks, Tusk has toured EU capitals to build support for his plan. In a visit to Dublin last week, the former Polish prime minister told reporters that the summit would be “about bringing back political control of our common future,” adding: “We in Europe cannot build a political community only on the concept of mandatory and total openness for everyone. The union also has to be about protection — protection of our freedoms, our security, our quality and way of life.”

The issue of migration illustrates differences between the Commission and Council. National leaders prefer to stop refugees from coming to Europe, rather than redistribute them once they have arrived, as the Commission has pushed for.

The Council's draft plan for Bratislava suggests the 27 countries should aim to “further bring down the number of irregular migrants” and prevent a “return to [the] chaos of last year.” The key planks in that effort are set to be “immediate assistance” to strengthen Bulgaria’s land border with Turkey, and ensuring the new European Border and Coast Guard has the “full capacity for rapid reaction” by end 2016.

A little light Brexit

Brexit cannot be kept off the agenda entirely. Senior EU officials say Tusk intends to follow the line he delivered to Theresa May in London Thursday: “The ball is now in your court,” since it's up to her to invoke Article 50 to start the divorce proceedings with Brussels. But his plan for Bratislava is to dispatch Brexit talk quickly in favor of other challenges, including security and trade.

The 27 leaders are set to position national governments at the forefront of the fight against terror, but to slot the EU into an increasingly specific supporting role. One example is the creation of a “Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS) to allow advance checks and, if necessary, deny entry of visa-exempt travelers” within the Schengen zone, according to the Council document. The idea, first floated in an April 2016 Commission discussion paper, mimics the U.S. ESTA program that screens and collects information on visa-exempt travelers before they arrive at the U.S. border. The plan sets the scene for exemptions to the current hands-off approach to travel inside the Schengen zone.

“The State of the Union presents Juncker with a golden opportunity to seize the initiative from the Council — and that's what he'll aim to do" — Mujtaba Rahman, former Commission official

On the economy, the leaders seem set to back the Commission’s efforts to boost economic growth, albeit in narrow terms. Instead of tackling head-on the backlash from southern European leaders against German-led austerity policies, the plan pushed by Tusk sticks to supporting the Commission’s free-trade agenda (most notably the proposed CETA deal between the EU and Canada), and extending the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), more commonly known as the Juncker Investment Plan.

The contrasting approaches of Tusk and Juncker may be on show at various venues this week. A day before the Bratislava meeting, Juncker will deliver his State of the Union speech before the European Parliament in Strasbourg, in which he'll spell out his own vision for the EU's future.

“The State of the Union presents Juncker with a golden opportunity to seize the initiative from the Council — and that's what he'll aim to do," said Mujtaba Rahman, a former Commission official who is managing director of Europe for the consultancy Eurasia Group.

Rahman, who has discussed the speech with Commission officials, added: "Member states are divided over the future of Europe heading into Bratislava, and this creates an opening the Commission both sees and will attempt to exploit. By focusing on concrete policy ideas where the Commission has competence, Juncker will contrast the Commission's role with the Council's, suggesting the latter isn't working but simply advancing national interests.”

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