Agencies, Brussels :European Union and Balkan leaders have agreed a 17-point plan to cooperate on managing arrival of refugees through the Balkan peninsula, the European Commission has said.Among measures agreed at the meeting in Brussels on Sunday evening were that 100,000 places in reception centres should be made available along the route from Greece toward Germany. The UN refugee agency would help establish them. Some 50,000 places will be created in Greece and another 50,000 on the route through Balkans countries such as Macedonia and Serbia, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said after the mini-summit of 11 nations.”Refugees need to be treated in a humane manner along the length of the Western Balkans route to avoid a humanitarian tragedy in Europe,” Juncker said.The agreement comes in the wake of differences among member nations on how to tackle the continent’s greatest refugee crisis since World War II.”This is one of the greatest litmus tests that Europe has ever faced,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel.Merkel, whose poll ratings are sinking as she has opened Germany’s borders to hundreds of thousands of Syrians, called for the meeting just 10 days after the last of several full EU summits devoted to the migration crisis. She said it was urgent to find a humane solution for tens of thousands of people stuck behind closing Balkan borders as autumn turns cold and wet.”The pictures of the last few days are not in line with our values,” she told reporters after extracting agreement from her peers to provide shelter, food and care for people on the move, helped where needed by EU aid and cheap international loans.”Europe must show it is a continent of values, a continent of solidarity,” she said. “This is a building block … but we need to take many further steps.”She also stressed the need to continue negotiations with Turkey, the main transit country to Europe for not only Syrian and Iraqi refugees but also large numbers of Afghans and Pakistanis viewed in the EU as unwanted economic migrants. Tsipras said he was satisfied with the outcome.
