EU countries struggled \u00a0to agree on several measures aimed at addressing the migration crisis,\u00a0and ministers failed to reach a unanimous agreement on a controversial European Commission proposal to relocate 120,000 refugees.<\/p>\n
Slovakia and the Czech Republic opposed the plan to relocate the additional migrants, as proposed by the Commission, unless it is clear that it will be carried out on a voluntary basis, EU diplomats said. Diplomatic sources said a clash between France\u2019s Bernard Cazeneuve and Slovakia\u2019s Robert Kalinak made\u00a0a final deal more difficult to reach.<\/p>\n
The Commission has pushed for the relocation quotas to be mandatory for EU countries.<\/p>\n
The meeting put a great emphasis on the quick set up of hotspots to quickly detect those in need of protection in Italy and Greece as a pre-condition of relocation, said Asselborn.<\/p>\n
At the end of the meeting the final conclusions stated that the Council has \u201cagreed in principle to relocate an additional 120,000 persons,\u201d but the decision was not taken unanimously.\u00a0The final document was issued by the Presidency and not by the whole Council.<\/p>\n
The conclusion does not mention from which states the refugees will be relocated. In the Commission\u2019s proposal, refugees were expected to be relocated from Italy, Greece and Hungary<\/p>\n
In a press conference with Cazeneuve while the meeting was still going on, German interior minister Thomas de Maizi\u00e8re confirmed there had been no breakthrough deal on a mandatory quota system. On Friday European Council President Donald Tusk said he would call an emergency summit of EU leaders if this meeting failed to produce \u201ca concrete sign of solidarity.\u201d<\/p>\n
A draft set of conclusions circulated before Monday\u2019s meeting began\u00a0retained the commitment to relocate the 120,000, but left out crucial details on how it would be carried out \u2014 and how the burden would be shared.<\/p>\n
Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker last week made the proposal\u00a0a centerpiece of his State of the Union address, saying Europe needed \u201cimmediate action\u201d to address the crisis.<\/p>\n
But by Monday afternoon the Commission was lowering its expectations. In a briefing before the ministers\u2019 meeting, a spokeswoman said that for the Commission \u201cmandatory is the best way forward\u201d but that\u00a0\u201cif the result is achieved, that is the most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The numbers being discussed by ministers are still only a fraction of the potential influx of refugees, which Germany\u2019s Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel\u00a0estimated\u00a0in a letter to members of his Social Democratic party (SPD) could be as high as one\u00a0million people this year \u2014 in Germany alone.<\/p>\n
Germany\u2019s decision to\u00a0reintroduce border controls\u00a0along its frontier with Austria also complicated talks. The question of whether the relocation of refugees in Europe should be mandatory or voluntary has been one of the main problems for many nations, especially Eastern European and Baltic countries.<\/p>\n
EU officials say Hungary\u2019s reluctance to be considered a front-line border state was a problem in the negotiations. \u00a0But after the proposal was unveiled by Juncker, Budapest backtracked,\u00a0asking not to take part in the\u00a0relocation package even though it would result in 54,000 refugees being moved out of Hungary (as well as 50,400 from Greece and 15,600 from Italy).<\/p>\n
\u201cI told the Hungarians that they should be the solution and not the problem,\u201d said Jean Asselborn, the minister of foreign and European affairs of Luxembourg, “We want to help them. But the key to\u00a0Europe\u2019s functioning is not in the hands of Mr. Orb\u00e1n. I hope we will find a solution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Interior ministers from Germany, France, Hungary, Italy and Greece held a separate meeting with representatives of the European Commission and the Luxembourg EU presidency ahead of the start of the Council, officials said.<\/p>\n
Commission officials said Germany\u2019s move to reinstate border controls was justified under the current circumstances and that Berlin had given assurances that the move was temporary.<\/p>\n
They added that if it appeared that there would be a domino effect of too many countries enacting controls, they could ask the Council to assess the situation on the ground and intervene. But EU officials stressed this was\u00a0not currently the case.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" EU countries struggled \u00a0to agree on several measures aimed at addressing the migration crisis,\u00a0and ministers failed to reach a unanimous agreement on a controversial European Commission proposal to relocate 120,000 refugees. Slovakia and the Czech Republic opposed the plan to … Continue reading ![\"Borders\"](\"http:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/1x-1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n