EU considers new plan to ease disputes over migrants

Estonian officials said they believed the proposal offered a good balance between pushing states to show solidarity and those who argue that their societies cannot accept immigration, especially from Muslim countries.

By: Reuters | Brussels | Published: November 29, 2017 3:24 pm

Hundreds of migrants are sleeping in parks and make-shift shelters in the Serbian capital in freezing temperatures waiting for a chance to move forward toward the European Union. (AP Photo)

EU governments will study a new proposal aimed at overcoming the deep splits over sharing responsibility for asylum-seekers that has soured relations in the bloc since the migrant crisis of 2015, diplomats said on Wednesday. Estonia, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, put forward the compromise plan at a meeting of national envoys, hoping to reconcile countries like Italy, which bear the brunt of arrivals from across the Mediterranean, and eastern states fiercely opposed to being obliged to take in immigrants.