- EU and Turkey to hold special summit in March
About 900 migrants have been rescued near the Greek island of Lesbos, the EU border agency Frontex has said.
They were taken aboard a Bulgarian ship on patrol between Lesbos’s port of Mytilene and the Turkish coast.
Frontex said it was picking up all the migrants it encountered at sea because bad weather made the crossing more dangerous during the winter.
More than 1m people arrived in the EU in 2015, making it Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War Two.
Frontex announced Thursday’s rescue in a tweet, posting a photo of some of the migrants who later disembarked from the Bulgarian ship at Mytilene.
The migrants’ nationalities were not immediately known.
Earlier this week, Greek started to register asylum seekers at four new reception centres on islands near Turkey, including Lesbos. This is being done in line with a demand from the EU.
Converted shipping containers and prefab shelters are being used to house thousands of people. The EU says they must all be registered there and fingerprinted before going anywhere else.
Last year more than 850,000 migrants – mostly refugees fleeing war and abuses in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan – entered Greece as a gateway to the EU.
During the summer months, some 7,000 migrants were arriving in Greece every day after crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey.
More than 700 died during their perilous journeys last year, and at least another 100 this year.
The EU has pledged €3bn (£2.3bn; $3.3bn) to Turkey in return for housing refugees and strengthening the country’s borders.
Turkey is home to nearly three million refugees, most of them from Syria.
Many of them pay smugglers thousands of dollars to make the crossing to Greece. They then head north, trying to reach Germany and Scandinavia.
Meanwhile, the EU is to hold a special summit with Turkey on the migration crisis in early March, officials have announced.
“The EU-Turkey action plan is our priority,” European Council President Donald Tusk said after late-night talks at an EU gathering in Brussels.
The EU has pledged €3bn (£2.3bn; $3.3bn) to Turkey in return for housing refugees on its territory.
More than a million people arrived in the EU in 2015, creating Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War Two.
On Thursday, about 900 migrants were rescuednear the Greek island of Lesbos, the EU border agency Frontex said.
In a separate development at the Brussels summit, talks on reform of the UK’s place in the EU continued into the early hours after London said there was “real hard work to do overnight”.
Mr Tusk said although there had been progress, “a lot still remains to be done”.
Speaking in Brussels well after midnight, Mr Tusk said a “European consensus” on how to tackle the refugee crisis was needed.
“We must do all we can to succeed. This is why we have the intention to organise a special meeting with Turkey at the beginning of March,” he said.
Mr Tusk said he would now hold a series of bilateral meetings with EU leaders to further discuss the issue.
He said decisions must ultimately be made by each EU member – but stressed that such moves must be guided by common EU laws.
Echoing his words, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the EU-Turkey action plan “is something we will be concentrating on”.
She said the number of migrants trying to reach Europe had dropped in recent months, but warned that there was a “clear danger” of a new influx in the spring because of warmer weather.
Ms Merkel pointed out that Austria also backed the EU-Turkey plan, despite Vienna’s decision on the eve of the summit to impose a daily quota on asylum claims.
Officials in Vienna said that 80 asylum applications would be accepted each day, and a maximum of 3,200 people would be allowed to travel through Austria.
Correspondents say there are signs of serious divisions between EU members on the migrant issue.
The Czech Minister for European Affairs, Tomas Prouza, tweeted that “well balanced and direct draft conclusions on #migration being taken apart over the last two hours”.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had been expected to take part in the Brussels’ summit on Thursday – but he had to cancel his trip due to a deadly bomb attack in Ankara.
Turkey is home to nearly three million refugees, most of them from Syria.
Many of them pay smugglers thousands of dollars to make the crossing to Greece. They then head north, trying to reach Germany and Scandinavia.
BBC
