Daily Times

Leaders of the EU’s 27 nations met to tackle the divisive question of migration at a summit in Spain on Friday, two days after agreeing a reform package furiously opposed by Warsaw and Budapest. After a tense day of talks at Thursday’s European Political Community summit, EU leaders began an informal council meeting in the southern city of Granada, with migration topping the agenda. Poland’s populist government, facing a general election next week, lashed out at Europe’s plans for overhauling the rules on asylum seekers and irregular migrants as a “diktat” from Brussels and Berlin. There was also a furious response from Hungary, whose Prime Minister Viktor Orban said the law, which obliges states to take in a share of migrants or pay those who do so, was tantamount to being “legally raped”. “Poland and Hungary were not satisfied with the proposal… so after this, there’s no chance of having any kind of compromise and agreement on migration. Politically, it’s impossible… because legally we were — how to say it — we were raped,” he said. One of the most-hotly disputed issues among EU member states, migration tops Brussels’ agenda after thousands of asylum-seekers landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa, highlighting the urgency of consolidating a unified European response.