Leaders of countries from Spain to Indonesia met in the Mongolian capital, Ulan Bator, for a summit that has been overshadowed by an attack in Nice, France. The summit opened on July 15 with leaders holding a minute of silence for the victims of the attack in Nice. The main topic of the this year’s summit, which was celebrating its 20th anniversary, was to strengthen the global system of cooperation agreements in the wide range of areas including trade and transportation.

China used the summit to promote its own One Belt, One Road program, which main aim is to develop infrastructure projects throughout Eurasia.

The United Kingdom didn’t have high-level representation at the event because of the recent cabinet reshuffle there. The leaders of the ASEM looked at the Brexit issue in more detail and discussed the consequences of Britain’s recent referendum on leaving the European Union.

Garcia-Margallo spoke about connectivity, insisting that “there will be no full globalisation without a real physical restructuring of the great continent of Eurasia”, adding that only these plans can lead to a “more integrated political, social and economic space”.

There has also been held a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit to discuss the conflict in Ukraine and the implementation of the Minsk agreements on resolving it. The leaders of the meeting were Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, and Russian Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev.

The summit seems to be the most important international event to be held in the recent history in Mongolia. 10 presidents, 20 prime ministers, two vice-presidents and two foreign ministers attended, as well as EU officials like Donald Tusk, Federica Mogherini and Jean-Claude Juncker.

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