German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday rejected a plan by Austria's leader Sebastian Kurz to scrap binding quotas for the relocation of migrants within Europe, saying that Kurz's alternative of "solidarity" would not ensure enough help for frontline states.
"This really isn't a European answer," says Merkel, speaking at the conclusion of a two-day summit in Brussels of EU heads of state and government . "We still need to work on the issue."
A new approach to migration that would do away with binding quotas does not "solve the issue" of ensuring an equitable distribution with the EU and is a "little too easy," Merkel said.
"We could still see some states left alone" to manage those people reaching Europe via the Mediterranean."
Less than 28,000 of a total 160,000 migrants that European leaders agreed in 2015 to relocate over a period of two years under a quota deal, were redistributed with the bloc, prompting European Council president Donald Tusk to call the quotas "divisive and ineffective".
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