EU weighs new ways to tackle migration as spring approaches

BRUSSELS (AP) — With warmer weather on the horizon, the European Union is weighing more ways to prevent migrants from reaching its shores but remains deeply divided over how to share responsibility for those people entitled to stay.

EU interior ministers on Thursday discussed steps to strengthen the bloc’s outside borders, as Germany and Austria push to prolong ID checks and better control the migrant movement inside Europe’s passport-free travel area.

But the issue of whether Europe needs a quota system to distribute refugees in countries hit hardest by the migrant flows — primarily Italy and Greece — remains so sensitive that it was not even on the table.

Dutch Migration Minister Mark Harbers said refugee sharing — known as relocation — is “a big puzzle that we have to solve.”