EU ministers meet to break deadlock on refugee quotas

Interior ministers from the European Union gathered in Brussels on Tuesday to try to break a deadlock on sharing out asylum seekers that has plunged the 28 member states into a fury of mutual recriminations.

Despite seeking consensus for weeks on how to settle 120,000 refugees across the EU, diplomats said it was still unclear whether interior ministers could reach a deal on Tuesday, one day before an EU-wide emergency summit that will be held on Wednesday. 

Officials are hoping that some compromise can be found Tuesday in order to prevent Wednesday's summit of EU leaders from being consumed by the same thorny issue. 

EU officials hope Wednesday's meeting will deliver concrete pledges of financial and other support for Turkey, Jordan and other nations housing some four million Syrian refugees, as well as for the 11 million Syrians now homeless in their own country.

Nearly half a million people have crossed the Mediterranean to reach Europe this year, an estimated two-fifths of them from Syria. There have been ongoing disputes between EU member nations on how to resolve the problem. 

Germany, the main destination for the refugees, wants governments to accept mandatory national quotas for housing the newcomers, while ex-Communist eastern states vehemently opposed to such demands.

The EU's executive Commission backs the quota scheme, but opponents call it a distraction, irrelevant to the problem of targeting aid to the neediest and reducing the numbers risking dangerous sea crossings.

After a failed interior ministers' meeting last week, it is clear that the dissenters, notably Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, can be outvoted. But diplomats said they were still working to find consensus to avoid such an outcome, arguing that on such a sensitive issue it could further poison relations in the bloc.

The Commission said last week it was ready to come up with about 1 billion euros for Turkey, more than five times what the EU has already deployed for the two million refugees there.

A senior official told Reuters that about two-thirds of that sum would come from existing funds penciled in for Turkey and the rest by diverting other money in the EU's common budget. But a key element of the plan would be raising a matching sum from EU states. 

Funds would be used to help the most affected communities, boost health services and support teaching in Arabic. In return, Turkey would be expected to do more to improve the conditions for refugees, to fight smugglers and stop more people reaching Greece. 

“Turkey has to deliver,” the official said. “Europe wants to take its share of refugees and will do, but Syrians should stay as close as possible to their homes.” 

Reuters