France-Italy spat triggers EU migration crisis talks
European interior ministers gathered for crisis talks as an ugly row between Paris and Rome over how to handle would-be refugees forced EU migration reform back onto their agenda.
New arrival numbers haven't yet hit the levels of 2015 and 2016, but European capitals are concerned about new pressure on sea routes from North Africa and overland through the western Balkans.
And now, with winter temperatures descending on eastern Europe and Ukrainian cities facing power cuts under Russian bombardment, the European Union is braced for many more war refugees.
The bloc has been struggling for years to agree and implement a new policy for sharing responsibility for migrants and asylum seekers, but a new dispute has brought the issue to the fore.
Earlier this month, Italy's new government under far-right leader Georgia Meloni refused to allow a Norwegian-flagged NGO ship to dock with 234 migrants rescued from the Mediterranean.
The Ocean Viking eventually continued on to France, where authorities reacted with fury to Rome's stance, suspending an earlier deal to take in 3,500 asylum seekers stranded in Italy. The row undermined the EU's stop-gap interim solution to the problem, and Paris called Friday's extraordinary meeting of interior ministers from the 27 member states.
Complaints from Mediterranean countries closer to North African shores like Italy and Greece that they were shouldering too much responsibility for migrants led to the previous plan.
A dozen EU members agreed to take on 8,000 asylum seekers-with France and Germany taking 3,500 each-but so far just 117 relocations have taken place.
Indonesian authorities deployed heavy machinery, helicopters and thousands of personnel in a desperate effort to locate dozens trapped in rubble by an earthquake that killed 271 people, as hopes faded to find survivors. -REUTERS