EU plan to distribute Asylum seekers failed

Brussels

The plan to distribute asylum seekers more equally across all 28 states of EU have failed as there was no consensus on the issue among EU ministers.

"There was no common view," said Latvian Interior Minister Rihards Kozlovskis, referring to a plan to transfer 60,000 migrants on a quota system.

Efforts to reach agreement over the Mediterranean migrant crisis will continue at an EU summit next week.

Separately on yesterday, Italian police removed dozens of migrants camping at the French border.

The migrants, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan, had been prevented from entering France.

The European Commissioner for Migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, insisted that only a compulsory mechanism - not voluntary - would work to redistribute 40,000 migrants among the EU states.

He said the EU "tried a voluntary approach in the past and it didn't work" - referring to an attempt to ease Malta's migrant burden.

Rescue operation

Earlier Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi warned that Italy would adopt a "Plan B" which could "hurt" Europe.

More than 1,800 migrants have died in the Mediterranean so far this year - a 20-fold increase on the same period in 2014. The majority had set sail aboard rickety, overcrowded boats from strife-torn Libya.

In recent weeks naval vessels, including the UK's HMS Bulwark, have rescued thousands of people at risk of drowning.

Another priority for the EU is to send home many more migrants who have managed to stay in the EU illegally. Mr Avramopoulos complained that in 2013 the migrant return rate was just 33%.