BRUSSELS (AP) — The latest news on the mass movement of asylum-seekers and migrants to Europe, including developments from an EU summit where leaders are discussing the issue. All times local.
2:05 p.m.
Estonia says it will accept 1,317 immigrants in 2016, a quota that doesn’t include the 550 migrants that the European Union member has agreed to accept under bloc’s relocation plan.
Interior Minister Hanno Pevkur says the figure only applies to non-EU citizens seeking work permits, among others, and represents exactly 0.1 percent of Estonia’s population of 1.3 million.
Pevkur said Thursday the Baltic country wants migrants “ready to give their input to the development of Estonian society.”
However, some Estonian companies have said the annual number of residence permits of about 1,300 has been too low to satisfy their needs for experts. In recent years, Indian engineers have shown growing interest to work in Estonia’s rapidly growing IT-sector.
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1:05 p.m.
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg says the last six months of 2015 have been “a demanding half-year for Norway, Europe and the world” because of the migrant influx.
Solberg says “the most challenging issue” in that time had been the influx of migrants.
She told an end-of-year news conference on Thursday that “it was demanding to deal with a situation where the numbers kept growing.” She added that the situation “is currently under control, but that does not mean it will not persist.”
Most migrants have headed for Germany and Sweden, while Norway has received more than 30,000 asylum-seekers, mainly from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Eritrea. The bulk entered the Scandinavian country through Sweden, but for a while nearly 4,000 refugees entered via Russia by using a remote Arctic crossing closed to pedestrians.
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11:35 a.m.
European Union leaders are converging on Brussels for an end-of-year summit focused on tackling Europe’s migrant crisis and other issues.
On the first day of their two-day summit starting Thursday, EU leaders will examine a controversial plan from the European Commission to set up a new border and coast guard agency with powers to unilaterally deploy guards to countries in trouble.
The plan appears likely to face opposition by southern European nations hardest hit by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants to Europe this year, including Greece and Italy.
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