The budget discipline that Brussels, urged on by Germany and other northern nations, tries to impose on member governments as a condition of membership in the euro currency, is fraying as calls grow, especially from poorer southern countries, to move away from austerity policies after years of lackluster growth. And then there's the proposed trade deal with Canada, a centerpiece of European Union policy, which is being blocked by the French-speaking Walloons of Belgium. "The stakes internationally are higher and higher, but politics is becoming more and more parochial." The scale of the trouble facing the European Union is hard to overstate. As the leaders arrived in Brussels on Thursday, the fate of the trade pact with Canada, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, was something of a symbol of how the European Union's ability to plot a united and ambitious path forward is losing out to parochial concerns. European Union diplomats were holding an emergency session on the margins of the summit meeting late Thursday to overcome the impasse in Wallonia. Politicians, he added, are thinking locally and "making calculations based on tiny things" - even when the consequences affect the way the European Union faces up to huge challenges. He says he worries that the accord could undermine public services and sectors like farming, and he appears determined to show he can squeeze concessions from the entire European Union and from Canada. "I think it's reasonable to postpone this summit " Mr. Magnette told Belgian national radio on Wednesday, referring to a signing ceremony, planned for next week, between the European Union and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada. If the bickering prevents Mr. Trudeau from coming to Brussels to sign the pact next week, the message to the outside world will also be that there's now no hope of reinvigorating stalled talks on a trade deal with the United States, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, which organizes the summit meetings, has urged leaders to take lessons from the backlash against globalization that was evident in the vote for Britain's withdrawal from the bloc, known as Brexit. "I'm afraid that it means that CETA could be our last free-trade agreement." Experts said the impasse created by tiny Wallonia threatens to plunge the European Union into still more troubled waters. "Europe is facing a new and profound crisis if the Canadian deal collapses " said John Clancy, a senior adviser with FTI Consulting in Brussels and a former trade spokesman for the European Commission, the bloc's executive. On Thursday, the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, was expected to appeal to fellow leaders to offer concessions to the Netherlands over an agreement between the European Union and Ukraine that was rejected by Dutch voters in a referendum. Arriving at her first European Union summit meeting, Britain's prime minister, Theresa May, sought to sound constructive, telling reporters that Britain would "continue to play a full role until we leave." She later made it clear that she expected to be included in the bloc's decision-making and meetings until then.