EUROPE-MIGRANTS/SUMMIT In tense talks, EU leaders agree plan to confront migrant crisis

Record ID: 136008

  • Title: EUROPE-MIGRANTS/SUMMIT In tense talks, EU leaders agree plan to confront migrant crisis
  • Date: 26th June 2015
  • Summary: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (JUNE 26, 2015) (REUTERS) GERMAN CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL AT NEWS BRIEFING
  • Embargoed: 11th July 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Belgium
  • Country: Belgium
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA23WYPN4ZPI4L8YMYUN02AK8C3
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Fractious European leaders argued into the early hours on Friday (June 26) over how to handle over a migrant crisis in the Mediterranean, agreeing a plan to share out the care of desperate people fleeing war and poverty in North Africa and the Middle East.
    Determined not to be dragged into negotiations over Greece's debt debacle at their summit in Brussels, leaders instead found themselves sparring for seven hours about whether to take in 40,000 Syrian and Eritrean asylum seekers now in Italy and Greece and another 20,000 people currently outside the EU.
    They eventually agreed a voluntary scheme, sticking to the number 60,000, but an exclusion was granted for Hungary, which earlier described the plan as absurd, as well as for Bulgaria, one of the EU's poorest countries.
    The European Commission had been hoping to set up a mandatory scheme and set a precedent for Europe-wide action that limited national opt-outs.
    Expressing his frustration, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker described the plan as one of "modest ambition" and said at one point in the meeting he had told EU leaders "I don't give a damn" about objections to the plan's underlying methodology.
    "We agreed, thanks to the skills of Donald, that the European Union should relocate 40,000 persons and resettle 20,000 persons. Whether we do so in a mandatory or voluntary basis doesn't really matter to me," Juncker told a news conference in the early hours of Friday.
    "The fact we took hours to agree about the system to be set up obviously shows that Europe is not living up to the values it promotes in each and every occasion when it speaks abroad," he added.
    During the summit dinner, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi rebuked his fellow leaders for their reluctance to support a plan that was meant as an emergency response to the tragedy of 2,000 migrant deaths in the Mediterranean year but has been overshadowed by divisions, particularly in eastern Europe.
    "As you know the agreement is not entirely defined at the end of the first day, an agreement that could be much more ambitious. It mentions 40,000 persons but it is a first step to say that finally there is a European policy rather than the policy of one single state," Renzi said.
    The summit became so tense that a speech by British Prime Minister David Cameron served as an interlude to cool tempers, with the much awaited address to pitch for a new deal for Britain in the European Union reduced to barely 10 minutes.
    The mood was a long way from the unity showed by EU ministers in April immediately after the deaths of 900 migrants off the Libyan coast in a single weekend.
    The criteria system replaces unpopular proposals for mandatory quotas on each country, which Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and others fought against, arguing their ex-Communist economies still lacked the capacity to cope.
    "In total there were seven countries which said they couldn't live with a strict formulation as we suggested it. Italy has fought hard for it, also in combination with the obligation to take finger prints and to make the Dublin Agreement compulsory. It was a very emotional debate which showed it was high time to have this discussion among heads of government," Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said.
    This week, Austria threatened to reimpose controls on its border with Hungary and Britain called for more security around the French port of Calais. Britain and Spain want a bigger focus on returning migrants to countries of origin.
    "It was a very intensive debate," German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters after the meeting ended, describing the migrant crisis "as the biggest challenge I have seen in European affairs in my time in office and we have already seen a wide range of challenges, from the financial crisis to the economic crisis, the euro crisis."
    "Here I see a giant task that we have to face and I think the way Europe master this challenge will be decisive and I see the possibility the we come to a very good solution and to emerge from it strengthened but I see more intensive debate going into that," Merkel said.
    That is a striking statement considering the eurozone debt crisis and confrontation with Russia during her decade in power.
    While the political deal was a breakthrough, implementing the plan still faces hurdles. The criteria to share migrants among member states must be decided by the end of July.
    Such factors as the size of a member state's economy and population must be considered.
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