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EU leaders to meet for emergency refugee talks

European Council President Donald Tusk has called an emergency summit of European leaders to try and tackle the refugee crisis, it was announced on Thursday.

EU leaders to meet for emergency refugee talks
EU and German flags outside the Interior Ministry. Photo: DPA

Tusk made the announcement through Twitter and set the date for Wednesday 23rd of September at 6 pm.

The ex-Polish premier consented to a demand made by Chancellor Angela Merkel after a meeting of EU interior ministers on Monday failed to reach an agreement on relocating 120,000 around EU member states.

On Tuesday Merkel called for a special summit saying “it is a problem for the entire European Union and therefore we argued for a special EU summit to be held next week. Donald Tusk will look into that.”

At the meeting on Monday in Brussels ministers could only agree on quotas for a more modest relocation of 40,000 refugees from Italy and Greece which was proposed in May.

Germany had reacted to the failure furiously with vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel saying Europe had disgraced itself, while Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière threatened financial punishment against the eastern European states who had blocked a resolution.