British Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to attend the first half of the EU leaders’ summit in Malta early next month, Sky News political correspondent Faisal Islam reported this afternoon.

The summit had originally been earmarked as a meeting of the EU 27 (excluding the UK) to discuss the post Brexit EU.

But the Brexit process is unlikely to have been formally started by then as the UK is not expected to activate Article 50 (the EU Treaty’s exit clause) before the end of March. A major part of the discussion in the summit will be on migration.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told the European Parliament earlier today that the EU needs to forge an agreement with Libya on the handling of migrants as it did with Turkey – having helped to stem the influx of migrants from the east.

The summit, on February 3, will be the second hosted by Malta in just over a year.

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