Merkel creates EU core group on refugees

German leader Angela Merkel i has said a core group of eight EU states is preparing to resettle refugees from Turkish camps next year.

The eight leaders - from Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Sweden - held a separate meeting in Brussels on Sunday (29 November), shortly before all 28 member states met with Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu.

Merkel said the idea is to “replace illegal migration with legal migration … it is an uphill effort, but it is well worth the effort.”

She noted the initial negotiations “did not come to any definitive position … we didn’t talk about any specific numbers.” She also said other member states are welcome to join what EU diplomats called the “coalition of the willing” in the future.

She added: "We will now begin the work [on details] in the next few days. The European Commission will then make its proposals to the EU Council on 17 December.”

FAZ, the German daily, said the resettlement scheme will cover 400,000 people. But Dutch PM Mark Rutte i echoed Merkel in saying the number remains to be agreed.

Jean-Claude Juncker i, the Commission chief, endorsed the idea, saying: “This is a meeting of those states which are prepared to take in large numbers of refugees from Turkey legally.”

But for its part, the Polish delegation voiced disquiet on the initiative.

Beata Szydlo i, Poland’s new PM, noted that the Visegrad states - the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia - also met before the EU summit to reiterate their opposition to EU resettlement or relocation quotas.

“I cannot imagine that decisions will be taken in such a format [Merkel’s mini-summit] and then imposed on other member states,” she said.

Konrad Szymaski, Poland’s EU affairs minister, noted that the group-of-eight is more or less the same set of countries which recently floated the idea of a “mini-Schengen” - restricting EU free movement perks to an inner core.

“We don’t want these tensions inside the EU to be used as a pretext for suspending or restricting the Schengen area,” he said.

The EU-Turkey summit the same day agreed to pay Ankara an “initial” sum of €3 billion to help take care of refugees in return for stricter border controls with Greece.

EU states also said they would hold twice-yearly summits with Turkey; open a new negotiating chapter in EU entry talks on 14 December; prepare to open further chapters next year; and aim for Turkish visa-free travel to the EU by autumn next year.

Both the EU and Turkey played down expectations of a quick fix to the crisis, however.

Asked if he can guarantee that the numbers of EU-bound refugees will now go down, Davutoglu said: “i wish to say to you: ‘Yes. The number of migrants will decline.’ But we cannot say this because we don’t know what will be going on in Syria.”

“To solve this crisis, we need a solution to the Syria conflict.”

EU Council chief Donald Tusk i said: “This is not a simple, trivial trade: money for numbers of refugees that would be unfeasible and immoral.”