Juncker Calls for Emergency Summit With Turkey on Migrant Crisis

 

According to Germany’s Rheinische Post newspaper, the meeting could be held in late January or in early February. An agreement on the crisis settlement and securing the external borders of the European Union could be reached at the summit.

 

However, only President of the European Council Donald Tusk can convene an emergency summit.

 

Turkey is a key transit country for thousands of refugees fleeing conflicts in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East. The European Union has been pressing Ankara to stem the outflow of migrants through its northern border into Europe.

 

Europe is struggling to find a solution to a massive refugee crisis. Frontex, the EU’s external border agency, detected over 1.83 million illegal border crossings in 2015, in contrast to some 283,000 in 2014.