BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union has abandoned a plan to hold a leaders’ retreat on defence policy at a chateau in the Belgian countryside and will hold the event in Brussels instead for security reasons, officials said on Thursday.
Earlier this month, European Council President Antonio Costa invited the EU’s 27 national leaders, plus British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and NATO boss Mark Rutte, to gather on Feb. 3 at Chateau de Limont, a large country house near Liege.
But the meeting will now take place at the Egmont Palace, a conference centre in Brussels, due to “an updated evaluation of the measures needed to secure” the chateau, the European Council said.
(Reporting by Andrew Gray in Brussels; Editing by Nia Williams)
