EU leaders, NATO meet on how to cooperate better

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BRUSSELS: European Union leaders and NATO's secretary-general are meeting to discuss how their organizations can better cooperate to face new challenges to European security, including from Russia and from Islamic radicalism in North Africa and the Middle East.

NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said Friday that "a strong Europe makes also NATO strong."

Of the 28 EU member countries, 22 also belong to the US-led NATO political and military alliance.

NATO and the EU, both based in Brussels, have increasingly been coordinating their actions, including how to deal with Russia following its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Instability in Europe's south caused by Muslim extremism is also a joint concern.


http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/business/eu-leaders-nato-meet-on-how-to-cooperate-better/articleshow/47829821.cms

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1. Calais crisis: Migrants erect barricades to snare lorries bound for UK

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11698636/Calais-crisis-Migrants-erect-barricades-to-snare-lorries-bound-for-UK.html

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2. EU efforts to tackle migrant crisis 'a disaster'

Europe's efforts to confront the migrant crisis in the region have been dubbed "a disaster" by the controversial leader of the U.K. Independence Party (UKIP).

Speaking to CNBC in Brussels on Friday, UKIP leader Nigel Farage told CNBC that yesterday's late-night discussions on how to tackle the growing numbers of migrants trying to reach Europe were "a disaster" for European officials, who wanted to see the responsibility for migrants shared among EU countries.

&quot The talks were) a disaster for European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker," Farage said.

"He has started to implement the EU's common asylum policy...and it's based on burden-sharing, which means that any migrants that arrive in Greece and Italy will be accepted there could then be shared out among the other countries in the EU -- but the message last night was clear that the answer (to that policy) from northern Europe was 'no'."

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102790298

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3. Europe Migrant Crisis: 40,000 Will Move From Italy, Greece in E.U. Deal

LONDON — Forty-thousand refugees will be relocated from southern Europe under a deal reached by political leaders to tackle the continent's worsening migrant crisis.

The migrants will be moved from Greece and Italy to other European Union countries over the next two years under the agreement, reached early Friday in Brussels by European leaders. A further 20,000 refugees will be resettled directly from overcrowded camps in Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan.

Friday's deal is a voluntary scheme, and exemptions were granted for Hungary, which is politically opposed to accepting migrants, and Bulgaria, one of the bloc's poorest countries. Britain is also opting out of the plan, which was discussed at acrimonious talks.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/europes-border-crisis/europe-migrant-crisis-40-000-will-move-italy-greece-e-n382246

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4. Chaos at French Port as Migrants Continue to Storm Trucks Headed for the U.K.

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There are believed to be about 3,000 migrants living in a squalid makeshift camp near Calais. They are determined to reach the U.K., where they say they’ll have the chance of a better life.

On Wednesday, British Prime Minister David Cameron called the scenes in Calais “totally unacceptable” and vowed to work more closely with French authorities. U.K. ministers are considering sending extra border-control officials, sniffer-dog teams and equipment to strengthen fences around the port and rail crossings.

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The chaos in Calais comes as European Union leaders struggle to decide what to do with huge waves of migrants entering Europe via risky sea journeys across the Mediterranean.

At heated talks in Brussels on Thursday night, E.U. leaders agreed to relocate 40,000 migrants who have arrived in Italy and Greece, plus a further 20,000 currently in camps outside the E.U., to member states over the next two years, reports the BBC.

http://time.com/3937171/france-calais-migrants-united-kingdom-trucks-channel-tunnel/

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5. In Testy Debate, E.U. Leaders Fail to Agree on Quotas to Spread Migrants Across Bloc

i expect we are going to hear a lot more about this. Rome is being invaded by the barbarians again, who just want to be Romans too, again. In ancient Rome's defense it can be said that the invading hordes in their case were not the results of their own policies.

BRUSSELS — Facing a migration crisis that has infused Europe’s usually arid and consensual decision-making with angry passions, European leaders ended an ill-tempered discussion early Friday about what to do with a vague pledge to spread 40,000 migrants around the Continent.

But they scrapped what had been the heart of a plan to share a burden now borne largely by Greece and Italy — a system of mandatory quotas to spread the tens of thousands of migrants, now in the two countries, across the European Union.

Heated arguments among leaders at a two-day summit meeting in Brussels exposed deep divisions and even disarray in a European bloc already badly strained by the repeated failure of talks to prevent a default next week by Greece.

The intersection of the Greek debt crisis and the migration issue also underscored the dangers to the European Union of a potentially bankrupt and destabilized Greece on the front line of what has been an extraordinary surge of migrants to eastern Greek islands from Turkey. Many of them are fleeing conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/27/world/europe/european-union-migrant-crisis-quotas-italy-greece.html