EU leaders to hold shorter summit in December, ending with dinner without May

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May and her Polish counterpart Beata Szydlo (UNSEEN) hold a joint news conference in 10 Downing Street in central London, Britain November 28, 2016. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The regular end-of-the-year summit of European Union leaders will last this year only one day and will end with a dinner where Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May is not invited, the indicative programme of the meeting showed on Thursday. The president of EU summits, Donald Tusk, invited leaders for a shorter one-day meeting to be held in Brussels on Dec. 15. EU regular summits usually last two days. The meeting will start in the morning and is expected to end in the late afternoon, according to the preliminary programme. Leaders of the 27 EU countries will continue their meeting in a working dinner which May will not attend, the programme showed. After Britain voted to leave the EU in a referendum in June, EU leaders have held other meetings without their British counterpart. (Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; Editing by Alison Williams)