European Union interior ministers grappled on Thursday with the politically charged issue of reforming the bloc’s broken asylum system, which the bloc wants to fix by June.
For more than two years ex-communist states led by Poland and Hungary have defied pressure from other EU capitals to accept refugees at times of high immigration across the Mediterranean to help ease the burden on frontline states such as Greece and wealthy destination nations such as Germany.
Poland, Hungary and others are reluctant to take in more refugees, who are mostly from Muslim nations in the Middle East and northern Africa, under a quota system. Germany and others say it is a question of EU solidarity.