The growing refugee crisis in the Mediterranean is also high on the agenda at the EU summit.
The mayor of the Italian island of Lampedusa is warning European leaders that they urgently need to re-think immigration policy, following a month in which hundreds of refugees have drowned trying to reach the continent.
Al Jazeera's Simon Mcgregor-Wood met members of the Coastguard who were first on the scene at one of those tragedies in Lampedusa.