Austria Says Will Stick With Migrant Cap Plan

He added that due to bad weather, no migrant had arrived at the Austrian-Slovenian frontier since Thursday afternoon.

“The discussion hasn’t got any easier and isn’t about to get any easier”, the diplomat said.

A British official says there’s no “sense that gaps in key issues had narrowed… there’s a lot of hard work to do overnight”.

Officials said leaders at Thursday’s talks argued over conflicting national reactions to the migrant influx, and the potential collapse of Europe’s border-free travel.

He said decisions must ultimately be made by each European Union member – but stressed that such moves must be guided by common European Union laws.

“[79 percent] said that asylum seekers should be distributed fairly among member states, with 69 percent agreeing that states which do not comply should be punished through the withdrawal of European Union financial aid”, Germany’s version of the Local reported.

As the main gateway into Europe, Greece is particularly anxious that scores of thousands of refugees and migrants will become trapped on its territory.

The EU would then need to provide humanitarian assistance to Greece, a possibility already mentioned in the draft conclusions of the 28 leaders’ meetings.

But the renewed violence on Europe’s southeastern flank coincided with more European governments taking matters into their own hands, with Austria announcing additional steps to fortify its frontiers and predicting that neighboring countries will follow. A mere 583 have been rehoused so far, with Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland – known as the Visegrad 4 – leading a boycott of the system.

An EU source said the issue has not come up in any of the meetings between EU state heads and EU council chief Donald Tusk and EU commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.

Leaders also express their concern over the continued and sustained irregular migrant flows along the Western Balkans route.

Merkel, on arriving at the summit, pledged to press ahead with the EU-Turkey pact despite the cancellation of the planned meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. “By March time will be running out… relying simply on Turkey to deliver is not enough”.