Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec says it might be illegal under EU law to keep the refugees involuntarily in one particular country and it's not clear if national parliaments are entitled to block the quotas. Ahead of Wednesday's summit of EU leaders, the foreign ministers of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, which have all opposed the migrant quotas, met Monday in Prague with Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency. The man in charge of Croatia's police forces has taken the unusual step of trying to personally reassure asylum seekers. Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic boarded a bus full of migrants Monday when he was visiting a newly established reception center in Opatovac in eastern Croatia. Croatia has been under extreme pressure since thousands of asylum seekers got stuck there after Hungary shut its border last week. Greece's coast guard says a wooden boat carrying about 70 migrants has run aground on the eastern coast of the Greek island of Rhodes and a coast guard vessel is helping the passengers reach the shore. Germany's interior minister is proposing a system under which the European Union would take in a set number of refugees directly from crisis-hit areas — thus avoiding smugglers — and then send any further asylum seekers elsewhere. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said Monday his "personal initiative" would see "generous," though unspecified, EU quotas to bring in refugees from crisis-hit regions and spread them around the continent. Police spokesman Helmut Marban says Monday that nearly 24,000 people fleeing their homelands had crossed in over the weekend. Croatian authorities said Monday that some 27,000 people fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia had entered the country since Hungary shut its border with Serbia on Sept. 15.
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