EU interior ministers were set to meet in Brussels on Monday after Germany’s decision to reintroduce border controls on its frontier with Austria
EU interior ministers were set to meet in Brussels on Monday after Germany’s decision to reintroduce border controls on its frontier with Austria.
Berlin’s move may jolt them into action; governments failed to agree on how to relocate 40,000 migrants back in July.
Ministers from the 28-member bloc will look at a European Commission proposal to relocate an additional 120,000 people, according to mandatory quotas.
But a group of central and eastern European countries oppose a mandatory scheme. They are the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.
Their diplomats say that any solution – seen as being “imposed by Brussels” – won’t be accepted by their voters.
A failure to strike a deal today could see an emergency meeting of EU leaders called before the end of the month.
European governments could face a stark choice. Reform the bloc’s asylum’s rules or ditch – perhaps only temporarily – the ‘border-free’ travel area, which is known as the Schengen zone.