EU members to take steps against Russia over spy attack

By Hajer M'tiri

PARIS (AA) - French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday a number of EU member states -- including France and Germany -- would announce shortly "coordinated measures" against Russia in response to a poison attack on a Russian ex-spy in Britain.

"We, like the United Kingdom, concluded that there is no alternative plausible explanation other than the responsibility of Russia," Macron told a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Brussels.

“We consider this attack a serious challenge to our security and European sovereignty so it calls for a coordinated and determined response from the European Union and its member states,” Macron said.

Merkel said EU member states would debate on what measures to take "and then act".

In a joint statement issued at the European Council summit in Brussels, the EU leaders offered "unqualified solidarity" with the U.K. and said they shared its assessment that Russia was "highly likely" to be culpable.

The EU members also recalled their ambassador to Russia. President of the European Council Donald Tusk said: "Additional steps are expected as early as Monday at the national level."

Twenty-three Russian diplomats left Britain Wednesday in the single biggest expulsion of foreign diplomats from the U.K. since the 1970s.

The move came after Russia refused to provide any explanation for their stockpile of Novichok, which Britain says Moscow used in the attempted March 4 murders.

Ex-spy Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, remain in stable but critical condition in the hospital after being found unconscious on a public bench in Salisbury, southern England.