Berlin eyes breakthrough in EU dispute over migrants this year

Germany said on Tuesday it wants European Union states to overcome a deadlock on how to handle refugees and migrants this year, weighing in on a dispute that has long divided the 27-member bloc.

With Berlin holding the EU’s rotating presidency until the end of the year, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said he wanted to get “at least a political agreement on the most important issues” to reform the bloc’s asylum system. It collapsed in 2015 during a major increase in migrant arrivals to Europe.

“Whenever a vessel arrives, we always make huge efforts to distribute migrants to EU countries. But it’s always (just) a small number of member states willing to admit migrants and this is unworthy of the EU,” Reuters quoted Seehofer as saying.