BRUSSELS — The leaders of Germany, France and about a dozen other European Union nations are converging on Brussels for an afternoon of informal talks on differences over migration ahead of a full EU summit that starts next Thursday.

There are deep divisions over who should take responsibility for arriving migrants, how long they should be required to accommodate them, and what should be done to help those EU countries hardest hit like Italy and Greece.

Facing a domestic political crisis in Germany over the topic, Chancellor Angela Merkel will be seeking to get EU leaders to forge a joint approach to manage the influx of migrants and refugees, a divisive issue which is now back at the heart of the EU too.

There are deep divisions over who should take responsibility for arriving migrants, how long they should be required to accommodate them, and what should be done to help those EU countries hardest hit like Italy and Greece.

Italy’s populist 5-Star Movement demanded Sunday that European countries step up and actually take action to deal with hundreds of thousands of migrants on the continent. The 5-Stars, who are in a ruling coalition with the anti-migrant League party, penned a blog titled “The migrant hypocrisy sinks Europe.”

“It’s time for Europe to find itself again in the principles that everyone preaches, but few sincerely practice,” the party said, adding “the future of Europe as a political community” is at stake.

Looking for common ground among a few key nations, the informal mini-summit now involves about 16 member states, as others demanded to take part.

And to further complicate matters, four eastern EU countries — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia — refused to attend and reject taking in migrants in general. It means that whatever is agreed upon Sunday, it would still face a full test when the full two-day EU summit starts Thursday.

Two issues have brought the crisis back to haunt the leaders: In Germany, Christian Democrat coalition partners CDU and CSU are haggling over the right approach in what is seen as one of the toughest challenges Merkel has faced in her entire political career.

In Italy, the new populist government caused a fight with Malta and France over who should take responsibility for 630 people rescued from the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Libya, the main departure point for people trying to reach Europe. Amid the mud-slinging, Spain’s new Socialist government agreed to take charge of the migrants last weekend.

On Saturday, Spain also announced it had rescued 569 more migrants at sea, many from boats in the Strait of Gibraltar, a busy shipping lane with treacherous currents.

But Italy and Malta were at it again Saturday, refusing to let a German rescue ship with 234 migrants dock. The German aid group said a cargo vessel, the Alexander Maersk, had another 113 migrants and was also waiting for a port to receive them.

One of the key accomplishments of the EU is the Schengen free travel zone and some fear that closing internal borders between EU nations to keep migrants out would undermine that cornerstone of EU cooperation.

“We want to have real controls at the external borders to make sure we can safeguard the free travel zone of Schengen,” said Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel.</s>Italy has warned the future of the EU’s border-free travel zone is at stake as it sought to ease the pressure on Mediterranean countries arising from hosting refugees and migrants.

Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, was speaking at a mini EU summit in Brussels, where he said a plan from his government presented at the summit represented a “paradigm shift” in dealing with migration. But his ambitious move to change “obsolete” EU rules that govern who is responsible for asylum claimants is likely to encounter opposition from other countries.

The 10-point plan by his new populist government also revives ideas proposed by previous Italian governments, such as calling on all EU member states to share responsibility for migrants rescued at sea, and countries being docked EU funds if they refuse to take in refugees.

Leaders from 16 European Union countries are holding an emergency summit in Brussels on Sunday, in a bid to shore up the conservative coalition government of German chancellor Angela Merkel, which was left teetering after a row over migration.



The summit is not only a a lifeline for Merkel, but an attempt to save the EU’s 26-country border-free travel zone, seen as one of the EU’s crowning achievements.



Before the meeting had even begun, divisions were on display, as Italy and Malta traded insults over which nation was responsible for a boat of 234 migrants adrift in international waters. In a stark reminder of the issues at stake, the NGO rescue mission Lifeline was refused permission to dock at Italy, while Malta sent it back to Italian waters. Ministers from Malta and Italy rowed over Twitter over which country was acting in a humane way towards the ship.



Arriving at the summit, Malta’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat, sought to lower the temperature, saying it was not a time for finger-pointing and counselling against “building a wall even on the high seas”.



The situation echoes the plight of the Aquarius, a rescue boat of 630 migrants that eventually docked in Spain last week, after being turned away by Italy.

Diplomats from France, Spain, Italy and Malta held intense talks about each country taking in people from the Lifeline. Meanwhile Spain’s leader Pedro Sánchez called on “comrades” in other member states to help, following a recent spike in arrivals.

In its 10-point plan, Rome is seeking to break the link between the country that rescues migrants and the country obliged to process asylum claims.



Under current rules, an EU country is responsible for processing the asylum claims of all new arrivals, which has put enormous pressure on Mediterranean states, especially Italy and Greece.



The Italian paper called on every EU country to set a quota for economic migrants and said migrant centres are needed in other countries.

Italy also backs the idea of offshore migrant camps in north Africa to process asylum claims of people rescued at sea. Although the idea remains sketchy and no African countries have agreed to host the centres, the idea is far more consensual among EU leadersthan how to manage people once they reach Europe.

The ad-hoc summit sets the stage for a long-planned gathering of all EU leaders on Thursday, where Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán can be expected to repeat his fierce opposition to migrant quotas.

Merkel played down expectations for a breakthrough at Thursday’s summit, adding that countries have to see “how can we help each other without always having to wait for all 28, but by thinking what’s important to whom.”

Instead of difficult overall deals among all member states, she said “it is also about bi and trilateral agreements for mutual benefit”.

Germany’s hardline interior minister, Horst Seehofer, has threatened to turn migrants away at the border, unless there is an EU-wide agreement by early July to better control secondary movements.



Many fear that if Germany closes its border in a bid to stop the arrival of migrants from Italy, other countries would soon follow, leading to the collapse of the open-border Schengen zone.

“If we don’t have a genuine solution on the migration issue, then Schengen is dead,” said a diplomatic source, who added: “I honestly think that this meeting is not the best way to tackle the divisions.”

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said there was a “political crisis” over migration and urged Europe to defend values of human rights. “Every time we have betrayed our values we have created the worst.”



Echoing Merkel, he also raised the prospect of some member states acting alone, if it proved impossible to find agreement at 28. “It can be cooperation between the 28 or cooperation between some states who decide between themselves.”

Reviving the core Europe idea is likely to prove controversial, especially with four central European countries that were not attending Sunday’s mini summit.



The original guest list was limited to eight countries, but the European commission later issued an open invitation, although12 countries chose to stay away.



But the symbolism of holding an EU summit in Brussels without all EU member states, struck some observers as a bad idea. The European council president Donald Tusk refused to host the meeting, because he wants the EU to act as one bloc, leaving European commission president Jean-Claude Juncker to step in reluctantly, as organiser.

Arrival figures for refugees and migrants are currently 51% down on last year and 81% down on 2016.</s>Several European Union leaders on Sunday backed plans to screen migrants in North Africa and the Balkans to see whether they are eligible for asylum, as tensions over how best to handle the arrivals of thousands of people threatens to undermine the bloc's unity.

At emergency migration talks in Brussels, a group of 16 countries led by France and Germany were thrashing out who should take responsibility for migrants arriving in Europe — currently mostly Italy, Greece and Spain — how long they should take care of them and how much their European partners should do to help out.

Failure to agree on how to deal with the challenge of migration threatens the EU's border-free travel area, one of the biggest accomplishments in the bloc's 60-year history.

The number of people arriving in Europe has dropped significantly this year — the U.N.'s refugee agency forecasts around 80,000 people will enter by sea in 2018 if current trends continue — but the EU's political turmoil over the topic has soared. Anti-migrant parties — and governments in Hungary and Italy — have been fomenting public fears of foreigners and have won support doing so.

Encouraged by a deal with Turkey that has slashed migrant arrivals from there by 97 percent since 2015 — when hundreds of thousands of people entered, mostly migrants fleeing war in Syria and Iraq — the 28-nation EU is ready to greenlight plans to set up screening centers in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Niger and Tunisia.

Plans to set up migrant reception centers in Albania are also under discussion.

French President Emmanuel Macron said "the method that we are going to adopt" would involve "working together vis a vis the countries of transit and origin outside the European Union." He mentioned Libya — the main jumping off point for countries bound for Europe — other African countries and the Balkans.

Noting that migrant arrivals have dropped significantly, Macron said: "it's a political crisis that Europe and the European Union is mostly living today."

The prime ministers of Denmark, Belgium and Luxembourg also backed the idea of outsourcing the effort to tame migration, although they emphasized the need to respect international law.

The International Organization for Migration and the UNHCR are cautious about setting up "hotspots" outside of Europe to filter people fleeing violence at home from those trying to get to the continent to improve their lives economically. No country has so far agreed to host any screening centers, according to the EU's top migration official.

It's also unclear how much the effort would cost, but the EU-Turkey deal has so far cost more than 3 billion euros ($3.5 billion).

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is battling a domestic political crisis with her coalition partners over migration, played down hopes that a full EU summit starting on Thursday will clinch any comprehensive agreement on how to deal with migration.

Merkel instead is pushing for bilateral and trilateral deals to cope with short-term migration pressures. EU nations, Merkel said, have to see "how can we help each other without always having to wait for all 28, but by thinking what's important to whom."

"It is also about bi- and trilateral agreements for mutual benefit," she said. France's Macron also supported the idea of members acting in smaller groups.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said he would propose a plan representing a "paradigm change" in how Europe manages migration. Conte said it would replace the current migration rules — known as the Dublin Regulations — which insist that migrants must apply for asylum in the first European country they land in.

Meanwhile, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez urged his EU partners to help Spain deal with a growing number of arrivals across the Mediterranean Sea. The UNHCR says around 40,000 people have arrived in Europe by sea so far this year, some 16,000 in Italy, 12,000 in Greece and 12,000 in Spain.

His appeal came as migration tensions surged on the Mediterranean itself.

A Spanish aid group that has rescued thousands of migrants from the Mediterranean said Italy had declined its offer to help seven smugglers' boats carrying about 1,000 migrants in need of rescue off Libya's coast. Proactiva Open Arms says in a tweet Sunday that Italy is seeking to have the Libyan coast guard force the migrants back to North Africa.

Aid groups say conditions for migrants on the shores of lawless Libya are atrocious and accuse Italy of being complicit in the abuse of those migrants.

Tensions between Italy and Malta also flared, with both EU nations refusing to let a German rescue ship with 234 migrants aboard dock at their ports.

Malta's home affairs minister, Michael Farrugia, and Italy's transport minister, Danilo Toninelli, engaged in a Twitter war of words Sunday over which country was being more "inhuman" about the fate of the Lifeline and its passengers.

Maltese Premier Joseph Muscat sought to lower the rhetoric as he arrived Sunday in Brussels, saying now was not the time for a "blame game."

Under its new anti-migrant government, Italy has refused to let humanitarian aid boats dock in Italian ports, arguing that they are only encouraging smugglers in North Africa.

As with everything linked to migration in Europe, even the meeting in Brussels has not pleased everybody. Four eastern EU countries — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia — refused to attend and reject taking in migrants in general.

That means that whatever is agreed upon Sunday, it would still face a full test when the full two-day EU summit starts Thursday.

Nicole Winfield in Rome, Barry Hatton in Lisbon and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed.</s>The leaders of 16 European Union countries are set to meet to discuss solutions to the bloc's migration crisis, as the issue once again exposes major divides between EU members.

The talks in Brussels on Sunday, which European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker described as an "informal working meeting," come ahead of a crucial summit with all EU leaders scheduled for Thursday and Friday.

Recent disputes in Germany and Italy have brought the bitter debate on migration and asylum policy - which the EU has been trying to overhaul since the 2015 migrant crisis - back into focus in Europe.

Italy, where a new government took office recently, closed its ports last week to a boat carrying more than 600 migrants rescued in the Mediterranean Sea, in a message to other European states that Italy needs more help.

In Germany, meanwhile, Chancellor Angela Merkel is being challenged over her efforts to find European solutions to the migration issue, with her interior minister and long-time ally, Horst Seehofer, threatening to close the border to new arrivals.

The sensitivity over migration was on display again on Saturday, when Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini warned "arrogant" French President Emmanuel Macron that France would not "transform Italy into Europe's refugee camp."

Leaders of the so-called Visegrad group countries - Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic - will not attend the meeting, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said after the leaders of the four countries and Austria held a summit of their own on Thursday.

All four Visegrad countries fiercely oppose the EU scheme from 2015 to redistribute asylum seekers across the bloc.</s>Leaders of 16 European Union members are meeting in Brussels to discuss possible ways forward in a political crisis over migration which is causing deep rifts within the bloc.

Sunday's mini-summit was called by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker who billed it as an "informal working meeting" ahead of an important EU summit on migration policy scheduled for June 28 and 29.

The emergency meeting will be an opportunity for German Chancellor Angela Merkel to find possible solutions as she faces a domestic crisis, which is posing an existential threat to her three-months-old coalition government.

Merkel came under pressure last week when her interior minister Horst Seehofer threatened to unilaterally implement an immigration "master plan" the chancellor is opposed to.

She believes a measure in the policy to send migrants who have already registered elsewhere in the EU away at the German border goes against Europe's open border agreement.

Last Monday, Seehofer said he would give Merkel until after the EU summit later this week to come up with a European solution.

Merkel on Friday played down the importance of Sunday's meeting, calling it "no more and no less than a working and consultative meeting".

She was also pessimistic about the prospects of finding consensus among all EU members.

"We know that no solution will be reached on Thursday and Friday at the level of the 28 member states ... on the overall issue of migration" she told a press conference during a visit to Beirut, Lebanon.

Instead, the German chancellor expressed hope "bilateral, trilateral and multilateral" deals would be reached.

Disagreement over how to reform European migration policy was rife among leaders in the days leading up to the summit.

A main priority is reform of the Dublin regulation that determines that the state through which an asylum seeker enters the EU is the state responsible for their asylum application.

Redistribution of migrants through quotas received fierce opposition from some countries after it was first proposed in 2015.

Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini on Friday reiterated his hard line on immigration.

"We cannot take in one more person," he told German magazine Der Spiegel. "On the contrary; we want to send away a few."

In recent weeks, Italy's new government has prohibited ships carrying migrants rescued in the Mediterranean from docking in the country's ports.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte agreed to attend Sunday's meeting only after Merkel had assured him a draft leaders' statement prepared by the European Commission and circulated on Wednesday would be put aside.

There was tension between Italy and France too.

On Saturday, Salvini called French President Emmanuel Macron "arrogant" and warned that France would not "transform Italy into Europe's refugee camp".

The statement came after Macron had said he supported the idea of imposing financial sanctions on EU countries refusing to take in refugees and migrants with proven asylum status.

Speaking alongside Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Macron told a press conference "You can't have countries that massively benefit from the solidarity of the European Union and that massively voice their national selfishness when it comes to migrant issues."

On Thursday, Macron had said nationalism and anti-migrant sentiments were spreading in Europe like "leprosy".

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz on Saturday said he would reinstate border controls if Seehofer goes ahead with rejecting migrants at the German border.

The 31-year-old leader has been pushing for stronger European borders. He is set to take over the EU presidency, which is rotated every six months, on July 1.

The leaders of the Visegrad group countries, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, announced on Thursday they would be boycotting Sunday's summit altogether.

"We understand there are domestic political difficulties in some countries but that cannot lead to pan-European haste," Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in an apparent dig at Merkel.

Europe has struggled to formulate a joint migration policy since the 2015 refugee crisis saw the arrival of more than one million people.

But the current crisis comes amid a significant drop in the number of migrants and refugees arriving on Europe's shores.

The United Nations' refugee agency has said it expects about 80,000 people to arrive by sea this year, which is about half the number from 2017.

"We do not have a crisis of numbers. We continue to have a crisis of political will," AP news agency quoted UNHCR Europe chief Sophie Magennis as saying.</s>European Union leaders will try to find common ground for tackling migrants arriving on Europe's shores in search of better lives - a growing political crisis threatening to undermine the entire EU project.

The leaders of about 16 countries - more than half the 28-nation bloc - will take part in what is being billed as "informal talks" in Brussels, ahead of a full EU summit on June 28-29, where migration will top the agenda.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday that the meeting involves "talking with particularly affected nations about all problems connected with migration." She said the hope is to see if "we can reach bi-, tri- or even multinational agreements to better solve certain problems."

The arrival of more than one million people in 2015, most fleeing conflict in Syria and Iraq, exposed glaring deficiencies in EU migrant reception capacities and asylum laws. It has fueled tensions among member states, and anti-migrant parties have won votes by fomenting public fears of foreigners.

At the heart of the problem lie deep divisions over who should take responsibility for arriving migrants - often Mediterranean countries like Italy, Greece and increasingly Spain - how long they should be required to accommodate them, and what should be done to help those EU countries hardest hit.

The problem was crystalised last week in a row between Italy's new populist government, Malta and France over who should take responsibility for 630 people rescued from the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Libya, the main departure point for people trying to reach Europe.

Amid the mud-slinging, Spain's new Socialist government agreed to take charge of the migrants.

By Friday, hardline Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini was again demanding that Malta, the EU's smallest country, allow a rescue ship carrying hundreds of migrants to land because it was in the island's waters.

Like everything to do with migrants in Europe lately, even this meeting is proving controversial. What started as talks between half a dozen leaders now involves at least 16, as others demanded to take part. Four countries in Eastern Europe - the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia - refuse to attend.

Referring to hasty arrangements and a domestic crisis over migration policies within Merkel's coalition government, the fervently anti-migrant Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, said: "We understand that countries have domestic political difficulties, but this can't result in pan-European confusion." "This is an open invitation. Nobody is excluded, everybody is invited. Nobody is forced to attend either," said Alexander Winterstein, spokesman for the European Commission, where the talks will take place.

With plans to reform Europe's asylum laws bogged down, EU leaders will in coming days affirm their intention to stop migrants leaving north African shores by paying countries like Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia to hold people until their eligibility for asylum can be established.</s>BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A group of European Union leaders gathered in Brussels on Sunday to discuss a common approach to asylum and migration.

Below are the leaders’ comments on arriving for talks.

“We are here to present the Italian proposal, a completely new Italian proposal based on a new paradigm on the issue of migration. It is called ‘European Multilevel Strategy for Migration.’ There are six conditions and 10 objectives. It is aimed at proposing a precise policy of regulating and managing migratory flows in an effective and sustainable manner. It is a proposal that aims to overcome the Dublin Regulation. Let us remember that regulation is based on an emergency-based logic, while in reality we want to tackle the problem in a structural way. Our public opinion is asking for this.”

“It is not about the survival of a chancellor, it is about finding common solution to a common migration and asylum policy in Europe.”

“One large part of today’s discussions will be protecting the outside borders and how we reduce illegal migration to Europe. There will also be a discussion about secondary migration, how do we treat each other fairly inside Schengen, how can we find a reasonable balance.”

“We discuss this here in view of the European Council. But we know that at the European Council, unfortunately, we will not have a complete solution of the migration issue. That is why there will be bilateral and trilateral agreements, how can we help each other - not always wait for all 28 members but think about what is important to whom. This search for a ‘modus vivendi’ and continue to work on having a joint European solution is at the center of today’s talks. Work will continue in the coming days. Today is a advisory and working meeting. It is a first exchange, not more and not less. But regarding the question: can we get bilateral and trilateral agreements in the coming days, this meeting is very important.”

“Our position is that Spain ... is fulfilling our commitments. Of course we are committed with the European Union, we are willing to reach this common response toe a global challenge which is the migration flows that are coming especially now from western Mediterranean and we would ask for the support from our comrades, other member states, in order to control better the flow that we are suffering now from the western Mediterranean.”

“What is important for Belgium are controlling the external borders of the European Union. This is a prerequisite to safe the free movement of people in the Schengen zone. The second important point today is to make clear what the potential conditions are for hotspots and reception centers in line with international law. The third point is that it is very important to get an agreement on Dublin to guarantee solidarity and responsibility.”</s>EU leaders have said an emergency summit on migration was positive but produced no firm conclusions.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the talks had not resulted in any decision on how to tackle the crisis but it had been agreed countries needed to work together.

Mr Sanchez said the meeting, involving the heads of 16 EU countries, were "frank and open" but "we don't have any concrete consequences or conclusions".

He added: "Everyone agreed on the need to have a European vision, a common position on a common challenge."

The meeting followed the Italian government's refusal to let the rescue ship Aquarius, carrying 629 people on board, dock in its ports. Spain agreed to accept the migrants in Valencia earlier this month.

At the meeting, Italy came up with a 10-point plan and said the burden of migrants had to be shared by all member countries.

The plan, presented by Italy's Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, sought more EU support to help the Libyan coast guard patrol its coasts more effectively to stop migrant boats.

The plan argues that existing European asylum rules are obsolete.

The Italian proposal says other European countries must create welcome centres for asylum seekers so the burden is shared.

It also calls for EU investment in migrants' home countries to give them an incentive to stay.

After the summit, Mr Conte said it had gone well and "we are all pulling in the right direction".

Mr Sanchez urged the EU partners to help Spain deal with the arrival of thousands of migrants from Africa.

French President Emmanuel Macron said that any solution to immigration should be based on the human rights and solidarity principles that the European Union stands for.

German chancellor Angela Merkel said the meeting had created "a lot of goodwill".

Mrs Merkel, who is fighting a domestic political crisis with her coalition partners over migration, said she was seeking "bilateral and trilateral" deals to cope with short-term migration pressures.

She said it had agreed that Europe's outer borders needed to be better protected to stop illegal entry and added that "all countries should share the burdens" related to migration.

The UN's refugee agency forecasts that about 80,000 people will arrive in Europe by sea in 2018 if current trends continue.</s>A ‘mini-summit’ of more than half of the European Union’s leaders appears doomed to end in frustration as the EU struggles to contain huge splits among its members over migration policy.

German leader Angela Merkel, whose political future is under threat unless she can wrest deals from her European counterparts on migration, has already conceded the mini-summit in Brussels on Sunday will bring no solution to the problem.

Mrs Merkel, on a visit to Lebanon on Saturday, also admitted that Thursday’s European Council summit of all 28 leaders would not solve the problem either.

She is now pinning her hopes on a series of bilateral, trilateral and multilateral deals with fiercely anti-migrant governments...</s>Leaders from 16 of the European Union's member states gathered Sunday for an informal summit on migration in which they did not expect to come to any bloc-wide agreements, as issues on the Mediterranean raised tensions across the continent.

Their aim was to consolidate their views ahead of a European Council meeting on Thursday and Friday, in which all 28 member states are set to debate possible responses to the asylum-seekers crossing the Mediterranean into Europe.
16 European Union leaders meet in advance of the 28 June full EU summit on migration.