EU summit buoyed by Macron's victory and far-right defeats

EUROPEAN political leaders are meeting in Brussels for a critical two-day summit ending Friday afternoon, after a morale-boosting few weeks for the EU.

Following the failure of far-right populists to win in France and the Netherlands, Brussels senses that the current Eurosceptic wave may have reached its peak.

The victories of liberal centrists Emmanuel Macron in France and Mark Rutte in the Netherlands, plus the recent defeat of the far-right in Austria, is a significant turnaround in fortunes for those forces championing European unity and integration across the continent.

It was Mr Macron's victory that proved most decisive here given the potentially existent…