Migrant talks escalate as European leaders struggle to agree on plan to confront ongoing crisis.
Fractious European leaders argued into the early morning on Friday over how to handle the EU's current migration crisis.
In the build up to the summit held in Brussels,reports emerged showing crowds of migrants attempting to board and hide in lorries around the French port of Calais, where the entrance to theChannel Tunnel is located which connects France to Britain.
Leaders eventually reached an agreement to share the responsibility of desperate people fleeing war and poverty in North Africa and the Middle East.
The criteria system replaces unpopular proposals for mandatory quotas on each country, which Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and others fought against, arguing their ex-Communist economies still lacked the capacity to cope.
Determined not to be dragged into negotiations over Greece's debt debacle , leaders instead found themselves sparring for seven hours about whether to take in 40,000 Syrian and Eritrean asylum seekers now in Italy and Greece, and another 20,000 people currently outside the EU.
Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker described the plan as one of "modest ambition" adding that he did not give a damn about objections to the plans methodology, "it is whether it can help 60,000 refugees".
Mr Juncker said he hoped to set a precedent for Europe-wide action that limited national opt-outs.
During the summit, Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi rebuked his fellow leaders for their reluctance to support an emergency plan that was meant to respond to the tragedy of 2,000 migrant deaths in the Mediterranean this year, which he alleges is overshadowed by less important European differences.
"If we think Europe is only about budgets, it is not the Europe we thought of in 1957 in Rome," Mr Renzi said, referring to the EU's founding treaty.
While the political deal was a breakthrough, implementing the plan still faces hurdles, and the mood was a long way from the unity showed by EU ministers in April following the deaths of 900 migrants off the Libyan coast in a single weekend.
original post found herhttp://www.abc.net.au/news
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