BRUSSELS — European Union leaders ended a summit Friday deeply divided over how to get thousands of stranded immigrants out of Italy and Greece, with an eastern bloc of nations boasting it was resisting pleas to take in refugees in a “battle” with other EU member states.
European Council leader Donald Tusk put migration at the top of the summit’s second-day agenda by circulating a note in advance that described the EU’s scheme for relocating refugees as ineffective and “highly divisive.”
The assessment proved a catalyst for high emotions and debate, pitting the countries that have refused to accept asylum-seekers against those that received disproportionate shares of the desperate people who arrived in Europe starting in 2015.
The latter include Italy and Greece, where most migrants come ashore after crossing the Mediterranean Sea, as well as Germany and a few other countries that welcomed new arrivals.