EU aims to spread refugee burden

Today is D-Day for EU ministers to agree a way to spread some of the responsibility for refugees around member states, but talks were still fraught last night in a row that threatens the union’s viability and could open the way for Germany to take fewer migrants.

Draft agreement that member states were discussing late last night dealt with making it more difficult for countries to opt out of their EU treaty responsibilities to show solidarity, by sharing the burden of refugees.

However, Hungary’s insistence that it did not want to be part of any deal, and so did not want to be relieved of 54,000 asylum seekers in their country, opened up another possibility.