Instead, Merkel said that leaders would discuss how to support countries from which people are fleeing; how to work better with Turkey, from which many are setting off in flimsy boats for Greece; and how to speed up the setting up of camps known as “hot spots” in Greece and Italy to register incoming refugees.
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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has announced that under new security measures that went into effect Tuesday his administration will be tough on those who cross the border illegally.
Most of the thousands of people entering the country are travelling through to western Europe, but the country is struggling with the numbers.
Police can now detain anyone who tries to breach a razor-wire fence built on the border with Serbia.
“This can serve to temporarily place persons seeking refugee or protected status as well as to process asylum claims and alien registration procedures,” he said as cited by Reuters.
A key Hungarian border crossing has to remain open amid Europe’s ongoing migration crisis say Serbian officials.
Discussions in the interior ministry in Vienna were still ongoing on Tuesday morning about the exact nature of the army’s role in controlling Austria’s border, the Austrian police spokesman said.
From midnight Hungarian time, it became a criminal offence to cross or damage a 13-foot razor-wire fence on the border with Serbia.
The fence would extend a “reasonable distance” of around 15 miles, according to Peter Szijjarto, Hungary’s foreign minister.
An estimated 200,000 refugees have so far entered Hungary in 2015, almost all by walking across the southern border with Serbia.
The Hungarian police closed on Monday afternoon the Horgos-Szeged railway crossing near Roszke, which the refugees from the Middle East used most often to enter Hungary.
On Tuesday, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said that discussions must be held on how to apply pressure on other European Union members who are not doing enough to help the refugee crisis, the largest movement of people since World War II.
The Cabinet will make a decision about declaring the state of emergency at its meeting on Tuesday.
Budapest’s move came after Austria and Slovakian authorities followed Germany’s lead in reimposing border controls, a further blow to Europe’s cherished passport-free Schengen Zone as the continent grapples with one of its biggest migration crises since 1945.
More than 156,000 migrants crossed into the European Union in August, meaning more than 500,000 migrants have entered since the start of the year, EU border agency Frontex said.
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As of Monday, European ministers meeting in Brussels were unable to come up with a plan for distributing across Europe the 120,000 asylum seekers.
