BRUSSELS (AP) – A day after endorsing Ukraine’s candidacy to join the European Union, the bloc’s leaders turned their attention Friday to the severe economic turbulence from Russia’s war in the neighboring country as the conflict’s full impact sinks in and the threat of recession rises.
The EU’s 27 leaders gathered in Brussels to grapple with surging inflation, energy shocks, dwindling business and consumer confidence, and growing budget pressures.
The leaders also will have to contend with higher borrowing costs as the European Central Bank prepares to raise interest rates for the first time in 11 years to counter runaway price increases. ECB President Christine Lagarde, who plans to raise rates next month and again in September, joined the EU summit to discuss the darkening economic outlook.
“We are in a difficult situation,” Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said on her way into the summit. “It’s very important that we have this discussion.”
The EU has spent the previous decade battling a series of crises, ranging from Greece’s financial woes and transatlantic trade disruptions under former U.S. President Donald Trump to Britain’s departure from the bloc and the COVID-19 pandemic.