EU chief sees first signs of consensus on migrant crisis

Friday 04/03/2016
Confident prediction ahead of crucial summit in Brussels

BRUSSELS - EU president Donald Tusk struck an unusually upbeat note on the migrant crisis Friday as Turkey raised the possibility of taking back non-Syrian asylum seekers.

Wrapping up a whirlwind diplomatic tour with a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Tusk predicted an agreement to shut down the Western Balkans route that most refugees and migrants have taken into the European Union.

His prediction ahead of a crucial summit in Brussels on Monday came as new official figures showed that a record 1.2 million asylum seekers arrived in the EU in 2015 -- more than double the figure from the year before.









The Aegean crossing has been the scene of hundreds of deaths, and a Turkish court on Friday jailed two Syrian people smugglers over the death of Aylan Kurdi, the three-year-old boy who drowned and was washed up on a beach in September.

The EU has been deeply divided on how to handle the biggest migration crisis to hit the continent since World War II, with a series of summits since the start of 2015 failing to produce a solution.

French President Francois Hollande said at talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Paris on Friday that they had the "the same spirit and the same will" in handling the migrant crisis.

But Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras poured cold water on Tusk's optimism, saying his country, the main port of entry for migrants coming to Europe, could not stop migrants heading to the richer northern countries like Germany.

In the French port town of Calais, where police were working to demolish the "Jungle" camp where migrants have been living in the hope of crossing the channel to Britain, protests continued.

A dozen Iranian refugees with their mouths sewn shut demonstrated for the third straight day, holding signs with slogans such as "Are you going to listen now? Wake up!".


Syrians fleeing the civil war were the largest group of the 1.2 million who entered Europe, numbering nearly 363,000, followed by 178,200 Afghans and 121,500 Iraqis.

Separate EU figures showed that an average of 1,943 people were still crossing to Greece every day in February, way above what Brussels wants.




If Schengen collapses and border controls return it could cost the EU between five billion and 18 billion euros ($5.5-$20 billion) a year -- equivalent to 0.05 percent to 0.13 percent of the bloc's economic output, Brussels said.
