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Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Deeply-divided EU holds emergency summit on migrant crisis

BRUSSELS (AP) — The migrant crisis overwhelming the European Union tugged at the very fabric of the 28-nation bloc Wednesday with bitter divisions casting a shadow over an emergency summit aimed at staunching the flow of asylum-seekers. Leaders meeting in Brussels were looking at long-term ways to tackle "the dramatic situation at our external borders and strengthen controls at those borders," according to a draft text seen by The Associated Press. Proposals included deploying more personnel to patrol EU borders, donating at least $1.1 billion (1 billion euros) to international aid agencies to help refugees in camps near conflict zones like Syria and boosting support to Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan to help them cope with the millions fleeing the fighting in Syria. Hungary's hard-line Prime Minister Viktor Orban said the European Union should come to Greece's aid in protecting the bloc's most porous border. Before the summit, the European Commission's top official in charge of relations with the bloc's neighbors said he hoped that 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion) could be drummed up for a "trust fund" to help Syrian refugees.


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