EU's Michel Says 'Sensitive Issues' Still Require Face-to-Face Meetings Despite COVID-19

The European Union will still need to hold face-to-face meetings to discuss certain sensitive issues in order to ensure confidentiality and to help the bloc reach compromises, European Council President Charles Michel said on Friday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th October, 2020) The European Union will still need to hold face-to-face meetings to discuss certain sensitive issues in order to ensure confidentiality and to help the bloc reach compromises, European Council President Charles Michel said on Friday.

"For several months after the start of the pandemic, we worked exclusively via videoconference, which enabled us to make progress on certain subjects, but we saw that there are certain limits with videoconferencing as well. When we have sensitive debates where there needs to be a greater degree of confidentiality and the ability to be able to work together to get compromises and decisions ... it's clear that we need to have physical meetings," Michel said at a press conference.

The European Council's two-day meeting in Brussels concluded earlier on Friday, although European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the prime minister of Finland, Sanna Marin, were forced to leave the summit after they came into contact with officials who had recently contracted COVID-19.

"Of course it is a difficult situation. It is my responsibility, after having consulted the leaders, to decide how we should work," Michel said.

The summit in the Belgian capital touched on a range of issues, including the ongoing negotiations with the United Kingdom on a free trade deal, the bloc's response to the coronavirus disease pandemic, the fight against climate change, and other regional and global matters.