EU ministers to hold new refugee crisis talks Sept 22

The current draft would allow for further discussion about how and where to relocate refugees ahead of another ministerial meeting scheduled for Oct. 8. A majority of the bloc’s interior ministers already agreed in principle on Monday to the redistribution, but they could not take a vote because the parliament had not yet been consulted.

“It is crucial that robust mechanisms become operational immediately in Italy and Greece to ensure identification, registration and fingerprinting of migrants; to identify persons in need of international protection and support their relocation; and to identify irregular migrants to be returned”.

Minister Fitzgerald says that after the initial agreement last night refugees will start to arrive in Ireland in the next few months.

European Council President Donald Tusk said on Friday he would summon EU leaders for an emergency summit if their ministers could not agree a solution.

‘We are very grateful to the European parliament for understanding the urgency of this matter, ‘ European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans said before the vote in Brussels on Thursday.

Asselborn recalled that the ministers confirmed on Monday the previously approved the relocation of 40,000 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece.

After a day of talks, Asselborn announced late Monday “it is premature for the Council to take a decision today”. “It is shameful that some of the richest countries in the world cannot stand together and help those fleeing war and persecution in Syria and elsewhere,” he said.

And tough new border controls have now come into force in Hungary.

With Europe’s 20-year-old Schengen passport-free zone creaking under the pressure, Austria and Slovakia said they would follow economic powerhouse Germany’s lead in reinstating frontier controls to deal with the flow of people.

EU member states Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, in particular, are the countries that oppose introducing quotas.

“This important transition will enable the EU naval operation against human smugglers and traffickers in the Mediterranean to conduct boarding, search, seizure and diversion on the high seas of vessels suspected of being used for human smuggling or trafficking”, the council of ministers said in a statement following a meeting in Brussels.

Jean Asselbloem, the Luxembourg minister chairing the extraordinary meeting of justice ministers, warned: “We have got to get ourselves together, or else Europe will fall apart”.