Brussels, October 25

European Union leaders will today consider sending hundreds of guards to its borders with the western Balkans, as well as deploying more ships off Greece, as the bloc seeks to balance Germany’s welcome for refugees with tougher security measures.

Central and eastern European leaders meeting in Brussels may agree to send 400 border guards and set up new checkpoints if the EU’s frontier states drop their policy of giving arrivals passage to other countries, according to a draft statement seen by Reuters that must still be agreed.

“We commit to immediately increase our efforts to manage our borders,” the draft said.

The draft if formalised, would be a 16-point plan and the latest step in drawing up a common approach to dealing with the thousands of migrants streaming into the EU every day from the Middle East, North Africa and Afghanistan.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU’s chief executive, has called leaders of Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia, plus refugeeorganisations involved, to attend the meeting in Brussels. Just two weeks after a full EU summit, the meeting was sought by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, diplomats said.

Many see it as an attempt by Juncker and Merkel to raise pressure on central and southeast European states to coordinate among themselves in managing the migration flow in a more humane way and end a series of unilateral actions.

“Every day counts,” Juncker said today in an interview in German weekly newspaper Bild am Sonntag. “Otherwise we will soon see families in cold rivers in the Balkans perish miserably.”

Still, some EU lawmakers in Britain and France have complained that all states should be there for the meeting in Brussels and that France’s absence in particular could limit progress on a plan.

More than 680,000 migrants and refugees have crossed to Europe by sea so far this year, fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania said they would close their borders if Germany or other countries shut the door on refugees, warning they would not let the Balkan region become a “buffer zone” for stranded migrants.