Refugee crisis: EU leaders expect to reach deal on fixed quotas at summit next week

Setting up EU administered 'hot spots' in Greece and Italy will also be high on the agenda

Refugees stop to pray near Edirne, Turkey, yesterday (Reuters)

European Union leaders are poised to reach a crucial deal which will commit states to accept fixed quotas of thousands of migrants and refugees now reaching the continent, sources close to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has told The Independent.

The sources in Berlin said they expected EU leaders to reach an agreement by qualified majority vote on the distribution of 120,000 refugees across Europe when they meet for a migrant crisis summit next Wednesday. “A lot of lobbying has been going on. There are one or two governments which have said ‘we will comply but we need to be outvoted to claim that we did our best to oppose this’,” the source said.

Refugees rest in a train at the railway station in Beli Manastir, near the Hungarian border, northeast Croatia, early Friday, Sept. 18, 2015 (AP)

Apart from migrant quotas, Wednesday’s summit is expected to focus of providing more aid and resources to Turkey, where an estimated two million predominantly Syrian refugees are being given sanctuary. “Recent lack of funding for refugees in Turkey is one of the reasons why they are now making for Europe,” a source said.

Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, is on a visit to Turkey where he is expecting to hold talks with the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. An EU-wide deal on refugee quotas would be a breakthrough for Ms Merkel’s coalition government. Germany has said it is prepared to take in between 800,000 and one million refugees during the current crisis – more than all of the rest of the EU combined. It has asked other EU states to share the load – so far without success. There are strong objections from eastern European states including the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, the Baltic States and Poland. However their opposition now appears to be crumbling.

Poland is reported to have signalled that its was ready to accept over 9,000 refugees, despite the government’s fears of an impending refugee influx from the Ukraine and the impact on an election at the end of October. Latvia was also said to have dropped its opposition. Still, Croatia closed its borders to thousands of refugees after Hungary had done so earlier.

High on the summit agenda are plans to set up EU administered “hot spots” in Greece and Italy. These would aim to decide who is eligible for EU asylum by quickly distinguishing between genuine war refugee and economic migrants as soon as they enter the Schengen zone. German officials have insisted repeatedly that the country is ready to accept thousands of war refugees. “The EU cannot respond to this crisis simply by building a wall,” government sources said. However Ms Merkel’s government has refused to say when it will suspend controls imposed on its borders with Austria last Monday. Her government is also said to be planning tough new immigration measures. These would force “illegal” migrants to comply with the EU’s Dublin agreement and return to the countries from which they first entered the EU.