Donald Tusk urges ‘honest discussion’ on migrant crisis

The migration crisis is testing the European Union to its limits, the head of the European Council Donald Tusk warned on Monday, as he urged EU leaders to hold an “honest discussion” on migration at a key EU summit later this week.

As thousands of refugees arrive at the Turkish border with Syria, the EU is struggling to forge a cohesive approach to the migration crisis, which saw more than one million refugees arrive in the EU last year.

Speaking in Bucharest following talks with Romanian president Klaus Iohannis, Mr Tusk reiterated his view that the protection of the EU’s external borders was the EU’s main priority in tackling the migration crisis, but he also stressed the need to step up the return of economic migrants.

“We must make sure our agreement with Turkey works and delivers a very significant drop in numbers of arrivals, something we are still waiting to see,” he said.

The EU is turning to Turkey to stem the flow of refugees, offering a €3 billion package to Ankara in November in exchange for tackling the flow of people. But so far, numbers arriving into the EU from Turkey have not fallen substantially.

Stem flow

Separately, the leaders of the so-called Visegrad group, comprising Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Czech Republic, called on the EU to urgently stem the flow of migrants into the union.

“Unless we put the decisive steps rapidly into practice and thus improve the management of the most exposed parts of the EU’s external borders and stem the migratory flow, the situation risks deteriorating beyond our control,” the leaders said, following a meeting in Prague that was also attended by Bulgarian and Macedonian leaders.

The group, which also discussed Britain’s renegotiation efforts with the EU, reiterated its opposition to an automatic permanent relocation mechanism for refugees, a key plank of the European Commission’s response to the refugee crisis.

Countries such as Hungary and Slovakia have been increasing pressure on Greece to improve its border control processes, in order to stem the flow of refugees into the EU.

Focus will return to Greece today when Mr Tusk visits the indebted country, which is continuing to see thousands of refugees arriving on its shores.

‘Hot spots’

There are growing expectations that Greece will open four of its five designated “hot spots” this week in time for the EU leaders’ summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.

Both Greece and the European Commission are facing increasing credibility questions about the hot spot system, which was intended to act as a screening and registration centre for migrants arriving in Greece and Italy.

The commission has also increased its scrutiny of Greece amid continuing frustration at the country’s handling of the refugee crisis.

Earlier this month it was given a three-month deadline by which to improve its implementation of the Schengen system and step up its registration of refugees arriving in the country, with officials citing “serious deficiencies” in Greece’s implementation of the Schengen code.