EU leaders set to discuss spy poisoning at summit next week

European Union national leaders are set to discuss the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal using a nerve agent at a summit in Brussels next week.

European Council president Donald Tusk said he was ready to put the issue on the agenda at the planned European Council meeting on 22 and 23 March.

“I express my full solidarity with PM Theresa May in the face of the brutal attack inspired, most likely, by Moscow. I’m ready to put the issue on next week’s European Council agenda,” he said.

Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday Theresa May said the Government had come to the conclusion that the Russian government was be behind the poisoning and that it amount to “an unlawful use of force” on British soil.

“It is essential that we now come together with our allies to defend our security, to stand up for our values, and to send a clear issues to those who would seek to undermine them,” she said.

The European Commission vice president Frans Timmermans has said European countries and their leaders had a “collective responsibility” to help their ally.

“If nerve gas was actively used against civilians in one of our member states, I believe that the European Council should in clear terms express its full solidarity with the British people and the British government in addressing this issue,” Mr Timmermans told the European Parliament earlier this week.

“I believe it is of the utmost importance that those who are responsible for what has happened see very clearly that there is European solidarity, unequivocal, unwavering, and very strong – so that those responsible are really punished for what they did.

“We cannot have nerve gas being used in our societies. This should be addressed by all of us and not just left to Prime Minister May and the British government. It is a collective European responsibility also under the OPCW [Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons] rules.”