Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy has been elected as the first President of the European Union, while Britain's European Trade Commissioner, Baroness Ashton, is the new Foreign Minister of the council.
A special summit of the European Union leaders in Brussels to reach a deal on its next seven-year budget appeared heading for a collapse after their negotiations got bogged down on Thursday night in a dispute over plans to boost the budget.
In his pre-departure statement, PM said he looks forward to the G20 Summit and would like Europe to prosper as "in Europe's prosperity lies our own prosperity".
A summit of the 17-nation euro group was proposed by European Council president Herman van Rompuy in Brussels to prevent larger euro zone economies such as Italy and Spain from being sucked into the crisis by demonstrating their determination to help keep Greece from defaulting on its debts.
The foreign ministers of the European Union will on Monday decide whether to impose tough sanctions against Russia in the wake of voting by the people of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula to join the Russian Federation.
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