How to watch the EU leaders’ summit like a pro

BRUSSELS — European leaders came for the budget. They’re staying for everything else. A two-day European Council starting Thursday was supposed to be all about the money. Instead, leaders of the 27 EU member countries are heading into one of their most crowded summits in years, with a succession of geopolitical crises threatening to hijack the EU’s carefully laid plans. European Council President António Costa originally wanted the gathering to accelerate negotiations on the bloc’s next seven-year budget, hoping to seal a deal before elections in France, Italy and Poland in 2027 make an already difficult agreement even harder. But the world had other plans. Soaring energy prices, tensions with China, Russia’s war in Ukraine (and U.S.