Migrants arrested as EU ministers discuss refugee plan

Police on Tuesday began hauling away mostly African migrants from makeshift camps on the Italy-France border as European Union ministers met in Luxembourg to hash out plans to deal with the immigration crisis.

The ministers failed to bridge differences over an emergency plan to share the burden of the thousands of refugees crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

Around 100,000 migrants have entered Europe so far this year, with some 2,000 dead or missing during their quest to reach the continent. Italy and Greece have borne the brunt of the surge, with many more migrants expected to arrive from June through to September.

And, while EU this year agreed to triple funding for sea rescues off the coasts of Italy and Greece, EU interior ministers disagreed over how the migrants should be split up equitably to ease the load on the two southern nations.

"There is no common view on whether it should be voluntary or compulsory," Latvian Interior Minister Rihards Kozlovskis, whose country currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, said after the meeting.

Past voluntary efforts to host migrants have proved inadequate. The current plan to relocate Syrians and Eritreans over the next two years is politically explosive, however, since it would legally set in stone each EU country's commitment to host a certain number of refugees. Only about 10 of the EU's 28 nations support the scheme and even those that do want changes in how the refugee distribution is calculated.

"We know that there is significant resistance in some member states to an obligatory measure," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Berlin.

The emergency relocation plan was drawn up after 800 migrants were feared to have drowned trying to reach Italy in April. No other alternatives were presented at the talks, officials said. EU leaders will now discuss the plan when they meet in Brussels on June 25-26, and interior ministers will take the issue up again at their next meeting in July.

"Relocation will only work if all member states participate. Only with a binding system can we make sure that every member state takes a share of the responsibility," said the EU's top migration official, Dimitris Avramopoulos.

In Ventimiglia, at the border of Italy and France, police removed dozens of African migrants who had been camping out for days in hopes of continuing farther north into France.

Some migrants protested, grabbing onto signposts, while others had to be carried off by their legs and arms — a violent scene underlining Italy's contention that the rest of Europe must do more to deal with the migrant crisis.

"We are human beings. We are not animals," said Saddam, a Sudanese migrant who watched the police operation Tuesday and only gave his first name. "I know we are black and we come from Africa, but we are still humans."

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazaneuve, denied that France had closed its border at Ventimiglia.

Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said the scene in Ventimiglia was "a punch in the eye for those who refuse to see."

Wire services