Brexit and Grexit on Asselborn agenda

(CS) Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn on Monday visited London where he met his UK colleague Philip Hammond, as well as Minister for Europe David Lidington and director of the Centre for European Reform Charles Grant. 

With Luxembourg taking over the presidency of the Council of the European Union this week, the ministers discussed current EU policy issues, including the migrant crisis.

The UK previously announced that it would opt out of migrant quotas proposed by the European Commission to help alleviate the burden posed on the southern European countries flooded with waves of migrants arriving by boat from North Africa.

Asselborn and his British colleagues also discussed the looming Greece default and its potential consequences for the eurozone and the EU.

A visit to the UK capital would not have been complete without a discussion of the EU membership referendum, which the government under Prime Minister David Cameron has announced for 2017, at the latest.

The Luxembourg Foreign Minister at a presentation of EU presidency priorities earlier this month had said that the Grand Duchy would aim to help contribute keeping the UK in the union.“We will listen attentively to the proposals by the British government and I am convinced that there is much common ground to find solutions,” Asselborn commented at the June 4 conference.

On Monday he also made it clear, however, that there are limits for what is up for negotiation. “While it is clear that keeping the UK in the EU is of strategic importance, the maintenance of European values and the European spirit, freedom of movement, is so also.”

Asselborn's visit to London came just two weeks after UK Prime Minister David Cameron met with Xavier Bettel in Luxembourg.

In light of the terrorist attack at a tourism resort near Sousse in Tunisia last week, Asselborn also expressed his condolences. The majority of the 38 people killed in the beach-side shooting were British tourists. Asselborn expressed his solidarity with UK authorities.

British Home Secretary Theresa May on Monday visited the site near the Riu Imperial Hotel where the shooting took place and paid tribute to those killed. “We will be united in working together to defeat them but united also in working to defend our values,“ she said. "We are resolved... to defeat those who would do us harm, to defeat those who would undermine our freedom and democracy and to ensure that the terrorists do not win."