The EU leaders agreed on a common policy towards refugees

“We took the view that we needed to have a degree of burden-sharing, on the transfer of migrants to countries, and Ireland has already agreed to accept some from that as well”.

Earlier, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said an agreement with 14 countries to accelerate the procedure for the return of migrants who try to enter Germany.

On EU territory, those who are saved, according to global law, should be taken charge of, on the basis of a shared effort, through the transfer in controlled centres set up in Member States, only on a voluntary basis, where rapid and secure processing would allow, with full EU support, to distinguish between irregular migrants, who will be returned, and those in need of worldwide protection, for whom the principle of solidarity would apply.

“Plans to confine people who do reach Europe’s shores to “controlled” centres are alarming”. Those rescued at sea could be returned to those centers for screening, not brought to Europe.

“It is impossible for a migrant to enter Hungary without entering another European Union member earlier”, Kovacs added, saying this meant any agreement would be impossible.

“Germany has not addressed us and I will not sign this agreement”, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said in a statement.

“Europe is really rolling the dice”, said Jill Goldenziel, an associate professor at the Marine Corps University, who is writing a book on the global migration crisis.

European Union migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos hailed the agreement as a “first positive step towards more solidarity”. He said those deemed “economic migrants” will be sent back to where they came from. It swerved instead to migration, which has become politically fraught with the rise of populist, anti-immigrant parties even as the number of migrants coming to Europe has fallen sharply.

Italy however insists on getting help for dealing with new arrivals before making any further deals. Italy has started to turn away ships that rescue migrants from the sea. Whether they will be given the opportunity to apply for asylum is uncertain.

This has raised the specter of an implosion of Merkel’s uneasy coalition government just 100 days after it took office, potentially ending the German leader’s 12-year tenure in power.

Iverna McGowan, Director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office, said: “After days of bickering, EU leaders have signed off a raft of risky and self-serving policies which could expose men, women and children to serious abuses”.

After allowing more than one million asylum seekers into Germany since 2015, Merkel faces an end-of-the-month deadline from her own interior minister to seal the pacts to curb so-called secondary migration.

European Union leaders have reached what they describe as a “breakthrough” deal on migration in the early hours of Friday, but the pledges made to strengthen borders were vague, and a blurry-eyed German Chancellor Angela Merkel conceded differences remained.

Merkel and her backers, including French President Emmanuel Macron and EU Council President Donald Tusk, say ultimatums and unilateral actions will only weaken the European Union and not solve the problem. “Some may think I am too tough in my proposals on migration, but trust me”, he said. Her conservative coalition is under pressure from the far-right Alternative for Germany.