Refugees walk along railway tracks at the Hungarian border with Serbia near the town of Horgos on September 14, 2015.ARMEND NIMANI/AFP / Getty Images
European Union ministers have agreed to create new camps to register migrants and boost deportations but failed to approve an ambitious plan to take some pressure off Germany by relocating the surging ranks of migrants across the EU.
As Hungary completely sealed its border with Serbia, the EU agreed to resettle just 40,000 asylum seekers, most of whom are now in Italy and Greece. But the agreement is to share the refugees only on a voluntary basis. The previous plan had called a mandatory quota system that would have seen 160,000 migrants dispersed across most of the 28 countries in the EU, with financial penalties for those countries that refused their quota.
The ministers' slow deliberations appeared disconnected from the rapidly shifting situation on the most besieged borders of Europe, where Austria, Slovakia and even the Netherlands joined Germany in reintroducing border controls for the first time in a generation in a bid to record the arrivals of thousands daily from the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
While the ministers were meeting in Brussels, on-the-ground reports said migrants were racing to beat the clock: On Tuesday, a Hungarian law comes into effect that will make it illegal to cross or damage the new razor-wire fence that Hungary has erected along its 175-kilometre border with Serbia. Those who cross the fence will face imprisonment or deportation.
While the EU ministers agreed in principle that 160,000 migrants should ultimately be resettled, a formal decision on the matter was punted into October.
The new migrant camps, or "hot spots," would be set up in Italy and Greece. They would register all migrants and separate "irregular migrants" from legitimate asylum seekers in need of international protection. Any migrants who are not considered asylum seekers would face deportation.
The EU countries also agreed to funnel fresh funds to the United Nations' refugee agency, UNHCR, whose camps in the Middle East are at the breaking point because of the steady influx of Syrians escaping their country's civil war.
The meeting of interior ministers in Brussels exposed deep divisions among the EU's member countries, suggesting a co-ordinated plan to control the biggest movement of people within Europe since the Second World War may be a drawn out, piecemeal effort even as forecasts for the number of migrant arrivals are boosted.
Hungary, Slovakia and several other central and eastern European countries had fiercely resisted the mandatory resettlement plan. Slovak Interior Minister Robert Kalinak said he opposed the quota plan because "it's not possible to hold migrants in the countries by force."
On Monday, German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said the estimate of 800,000 arrivals this year into Germany, the preferred destination for asylum seekers, was understated; the new estimate, he said, was one million.
The Brussels meeting came as more EU countries rushed to impose border controls to try slow the flow of migrants across their borders. Germany triggered the border clampdown on Sunday, when it stopped train travel from Austria and put road checks in place. Police checks on the main highway between Salzburg and Munich delayed traffic for hours on Monday. The police asked drivers and passengers to produce travel documents and demanded that some drivers open their trunks.
On Monday evening, Hungary finished sealing its border along the Serbian frontier with a razor-wire fence. The main railroad link between the two countries was also blocked. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said the fence and the migrant-control measures had cost the government €200-million ($300-million).
Earlier in the day, Hungary said that record numbers of migrants, many from Syria, were entering the country from Serbia. The count stood at 5,333 by noon, almost as high as the record number that reached Hungary on Sunday.
Since Germany's border controls came into place, Austria and Slovakia announced they will send more soldiers to patrol their borders and assist police in controlling migrant flows. Poland and the Netherlands also plan to bolster their border checks. Mr. Orban spoke about the border controls as if Hungary were on a war footing. "New rules that take effect [Tuesday] will strengthen Hungary's border defence," he told police cadets in Budapest.
In a draft report leaked while the EU migrants' summit was under way, the EU said the new migrant hot spots were essential components of an urgently needed migrant control policy: "It is crucial that robust mechanisms become operations immediately in Italy and Greece to ensure identification, registration and fingerprinting of migrants; to identify persons in need of international protection and support their relocation; and to identify irregular migrants to be returned."
The draft also said "rapid border intervention teams" would be deployed at "sensitive external borders," presumably to help police control entry points.
As Germany, Austria and Hungary struggled to contain the chaos along their borders, aftermath of another tragedy unfolded in the Mediterranean. At least 34 migrants, including 15 babies and children, downed when their boat overturned near the Greek island of Farmakonisi, in the Aegean Sea on Sunday. The Athens News Agency said the boat was overcrowded and capsized in high winds. Thirty migrants managed to swim to the island and 68 were plucked alive from the water.
EU governments on Monday agreed to expand a naval surveillance mission in the south-central Mediterranean in an effort to stop human smuggling from Libya, the source of most of the migrants trying to enter the EU through Italy. But the mission, which would see search and seizure of suspected smugglers' boats, depends on whether the EU states are willing to supply extra forces and vessels.
With a report from Associated Press
Eric Reguly