Refugee crisis: EU leaders to hold meeting to find solution

The European Union (EU) will hold an emergency summit of the leaders of the nations affected by the current refugee crisis to find a solution, to the plight of thousands of migrants stranded in the western Balkans in their desperate attempt to reach western Europe.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has convened the meeting for Sunday in Brussels in view of the "unfolding emergency" in the nations along the western Balkans route of the migrants, which required "much greater cooperation, more extensive consultation and immediate operational action," a commission's statement said yesterday.

Besides German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Austrian counterpart Werner Faymann, the leaders of Greece, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Rumania and Bulgaria as well as non-EU nations Serbia and Macedonia have been invited to attend the meeting, the statement said.

The situation of the refugees heading to western Europe through the Balkans route has been deteriorating since Hungary last Friday closed its border with Serbia and Croatia, leaving them a journey through Croatia and Slovenia as the only alternative to reach Austria and Germany.

Thousands of refugees have been stuck in Croatia and Slovenia in increasingly cold and rainy weather without proper shelter and short of food and water, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR and other aid organisations.

Croatia had limited the number of people it has been taking from Serbia and diverted many of them to Slovenia.

Until last week, Croatia has been transporting the refugees entering the country from Serbia to the Hungarian border and from there they were taken to the Austrian border.

Overwhelmed by the influx of refugees, Slovenia set a limit of 2,500 refugees it can take from Croatia per day in order to be in a position to register them and to transport them to the Austrian border.

The situation in an overcrowded Slovenian registration centre for refugees in Brezice escalated on Tuesday after some refugees set on fire their tents in protest against the conditions there, media reports said.

Meanwhile, several thousand refugees are waiting on the Serbian side to enter Croatia while many more are on their way along the route from Greece to Macedonia and Serbia.

Germany's newly-appointed coordinator for refugees Peter Altmeier, who took the initiative to organise next Sunday's summit, said it was intended to reach an understanding on joint initiatives and sharing of responsibilities to restore order in the movement of migrants and to ensure that every nation involved treated them with human dignity.

The refugee crisis can be tackled only through joint efforts and therefore "our goal is to reach a common understanding on joint initiatives and sharing of responsibilities. Every country must make its contribution instead of passing on responsibilities to another," Altmeier said.