EU-Turkey summit seeks to stem migrant flows to Europe

The European Union is expected to call on Turkey to do more to stop people from attempting to cross to Europe by sea, risking their lives in the process.

Gathered in Brussels for an emergency summit on tackling Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War Two, EU leaders will also officially declare the western Balkans route closed.

Pledging to give Ankara €3 billion, the EU will press Turkey to take back economic migrants. Last year, more than a million people entered the EU illegally by boat, mainly going from Turkey to Greece.

Some 13,000 are stranded on Greece's border with Macedonia.

EU states remain divided over their response to the crisis with strains showing this year even in Germany and Sweden, seen as the countries most open to refugees.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte met their Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Davutoglu, at the Turkish embassy in Brussels late on Sunday to prepare for the summit.

The summit will be in two parts - the first session from 11:30 GMT will involve Turkey, while in the afternoon UK Prime Minister David Cameron will join other EU leaders in seeking to reach a common approach to the crisis.

The EU is expected to ask Turkey to take back thousands of migrants who do not qualify for asylum. In return the EU will discuss plans to resettle in Europe some refugees already in Turkey.

According to the BBC, the EU may now overhaul its system that requires asylum seekers to lodge claims in their EU country of arrival, and instead adopt a centralised system for processing applications.

Greek MEP Stelios Kouloglou told the BBC it should not be hard for a continent of 500 million people to absorb one million migrants, but said that in Europe "there is no solidarity. There is no respect of international laws and values".