EU leaders agree on plan to tackle migrant crisis

European leaders have agreed on a plan to share the care of migrants fleeing war and poverty in North Africa and the Middle East, after arguing into the early hours on Friday over how to handle over the crisis in the Mediterranean.

The leaders sparred 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.

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.

The plan aims to speed up the relocation of 40,000 migrants from Italy and Greece over two years.

Another 20,000 people now living outside of the EU and who are found to be in need of protection will also be resettled under the plan, which was immediately criticized by Italy for not imposing mandatory quotas on nations.

The distribution of the migrants will be agreed upon by the end of July.

Hungary, which on Tuesday indefinitely suspended the application of a key EU asylum rule requiring migrants to be processed in their country of arrival, and Bulgaria were excluded from the plan.

Under the plan, migrants not found to be in need of protection will be swiftly returned to their countries — to discourage others from making the journey.

“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 as chancellor.”

Expressing his frustration, 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.

“We have to find out if the system works. It doesn't matter if it is voluntary or mandatory, it is whether it can help 60,000 refugees,” Juncker told a news conference early on Friday.

However, the EU's chief executive had been hoping to set a precedent for Europe-wide action that limited national opt-outs.

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 deaths of 2,000 migrants in the Mediterranean so far this year, a number the International Organization for Migration warns that the migrant death toll could reach 30,000 in 2015.

In April EU leaders emerged from an emergency meeting after the deaths of 900 people off the coast of Libya promising to triple funding for Triton, the EU operation that patrols the seas — to $9.7 million monthly. 

While Friday’s 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. Factors such as the size of a member state's economy and population must be considered.

"There's much, much more argument to come," said one senior EU diplomat. "I don't yet see the full way forward."

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.

The debate has also strained the EU's commitment to its Schengen agreement on passport-free travel.

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.

Al Jazeera with Reuters