All party factions in the European Parliament are traditionally organising a meeting of party leaders ahead of the EU summit. The EPP, which gathers European Christian Democratic parties, is the most numerous party in the European Parliament with 268 deputies.
The EPP summit, which will be held in Meise near Brussels on Thursday, will be attended by about ten prime ministers from EU member countries and the Croatian Prime Minister and president of the Croatian Democratic Union, Ivo Sanader, and party leaders from entire Europe.
Jose Manuel Barroso will be appointed President of the European Commission at the summit.
On Friday morning, Sanader is scheduled to hold talks with his Belgian counterpart, Guy Verhofstadt. Later that day he is to meet the prime ministers of the other three EU candidate countries -- Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey, as well as officials of the Netherlands, which is currently chairing the European Union.
This is a traditional meeting with leaders of EU candidate countries at which the EU presidency will inform them of the work of the summit.
The two-day EU summit will start on late Thursday afternoon.