EU founding members meet in Rome on integration crisis

Foreign ministers from six founding countries of the European Union met in Rome Tuesday to discuss solution to the current crisis hampering the EU integration.

According to a statement issued by the Italian Foreign Ministry, the six ministers from Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, had to meet because the 28-nation European bloc is facing multiple crises, such as migrant crisis, terrorism threat, obstacles to European development and standstill of the European integration process.

At the press conference after the meeting, Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said the six foreign ministers believed that the EU has made great achievements in the past and will see brighter prospects in the future even though there are various voices of skepticism on the European integration.

Europe is experiencing a very hard time which led to the question of the European development in the future, Gentiloni said. He expressed the hope that all the EU member states could share the common burden and address EU's biggest ever challenge: the migrant crisis.

Only the common policy of the European Union could solve the issues of Europe, the Italian foreign minister added.

Ahead of the talks, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that calling basic EU principles into question was "playing with fire." Denying that EU's future was in jeopardy, he said there was no doubt that the bloc would continue to exist.

Steinmeier also said there was disaffection among the EU younger generation and whether the problem could be solved solely depended a lot on how the EU would tackle the issue of refugee crisis.

In 1957, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany signed the Treaty of Rome, which created the European Economic Community and established a customs union, the foundation of the European Community, or the EU predecessor. Endit