Rutte: "Europe needs strict limits"

After the European elections, Prime Minister Mark Rutte wants to decide a limit of five tasks for the EU, to perform over the next five years. He wants to discuss his "priority agenda" next week Tuesday during a dinner where heads of state and government leaders will discuss the new president of the European Commission. Rutte has mapped out his five tasks for Brussels as such: a stronger internal market, fewer rules, more free trade, one energy market and tackling the negatives on the joint labour market. The agenda must be approved of and agreed to by all 28 EU member states at the European summit meeting in June. The Prime Minister says that the European Commission has been spreading itself thinly on varied matters, and believes that the time has come for a limited packet of tasks. "The EU has to return to the core", Rutte tells the Gelderlander. Rutte believes that Europe cannot continue down the old path, and that citizens have become cynical. At the dinner in Brussels on Tuesday, the PM wants to immediately get down to business. "It will be an important evening. I absolutely want to avoid that we go on as if nothing happened after the elections. Knowing Europe, that won't happen in one meeting, but I want to gain some ground that evening", Rutte says.