VIENNA: Austria’s chancellor has convened a meeting of his German, Greek and west Balkans counterparts on strategies to deal with Europe’s migrant crisis. The European leaders met Saturday at Chancellor Christian Kern’s invitation to discuss how to better fortify the European Union’s outer borders against illegal migration and trafficking. Ahead of the meeting, EU Council President Donald Tusk told reporters that “since the first day of the migration crisis I have had no doubt that the main key to its resolution is restoring effective control of the EU’s external borders.” The migration summit will also focus on how to keep closed the so-called Balkans route that was used last year by hundreds of thousands of people from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other crisis-torn countries to reach northern Europe. Meanwhile, French President Francois Hollande said that thousands of migrants living in the shanty town near Calais known as the “Jungle” would be dispersed across the country, in an attempt to quell criticism of his handling of Europe’s migrant crisis. About 9,000 places will be made available at “reception and orientation centres” for migrants living in the camp which is near the port city in northern France, Hollande said on i-Tele, after visiting a facility in Tours, about 240 km (150 miles) south-west of Paris. The migrants will be split into groups of 40 to 50 people for a limited period of three to four months, Hollande said. Those who fit the asylum criteria will be allowed to stay in France, while those who do not will be deported, he said. “There should be no camp in France,” the French president said, adding that the goal was to dismantle it completely. The squalid camp, which Hollande is to visit on Monday, has become a symbol of the migrant crisis in France at a time when immigration is seen as a key theme in next year’s presidential election. Migrants from the camp regularly clash with the police as they try to make their way to Britain via the port. Former president Nicolas Sarkozy visited Calais this week, as he campaigns for a return to the presidency next year, promising to be particularly tough on immigration.