EU Leaders Discuss Migrant Crisis at Brussels Summit

BRUSSELS, (Patria) - At least 16 leaders of European Union member states will participate today in an informal meeting on migration and asylum, convened by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that the meeting will involve discussions with particularly vulnerable countries and address all issues related to migration.

She expressed hope to see if bilateral, trilateral, or multilateral agreements can be reached to resolve specific problems.

The core of the problem lies in disagreements among member states regarding who should take responsibility for arriving migrants, how long they should be cared for, and what measures should be taken to assist the most affected EU member states, which are typically countries on the Mediterranean coast: Italy, Greece, and increasingly, Spain.

The issue became clear last week when Italy, Malta, and France debated who should take responsibility for 630 migrants rescued from the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Libya. Spanish authorities eventually agreed to take in the migrants.

Regarding the meeting participants, initially, eight countries were mentioned as attending – Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, and Malta.

Commission spokesperson Alexander Winterstein said that another eight countries have expressed a desire to participate – Croatia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Slovenia.

- The invitation remains open. No one is excluded, everyone is invited, and no one is obliged to attend - stated Winterstein, as reported by Al Jazeera.

The Visegrad Group countries – Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic – refused to participate in today's meeting.