BBC Online :The European Union has announced emergency talks on 14 September to deal with the escalating migration crisis.Austria has begun expanding checks on lorries near its eastern borders, after Europe was shocked by the discovery of 71 dead migrants in a lorry near the border with Hungary.Hundreds more people also drowned in the Mediterranean last week, as they tried to reach Europe from Libya.A record number of 107,500 migrants reached the EU’s borders last month.Long traffic jams built up on Hungary’s major roads leading to the Austrian border, because of the extra Austrian police checks. Queues of 30km (18 miles) were reported on the main M1 road from Budapest, as security officials searched vehicles over the border in Nickelsdorf. There were also jams further along the border at Klingenbach and Deutschkreutz. Five people have been detained in connection with the deaths of 71 people, most of them thought to be Syrians, in a lorry found on the A4 at Parndorf.”We will do controls for an undetermined length of time at all important border crossings in the eastern region, looking at all vehicles that have possible hiding places for trafficked people,” said Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner. The Austrian checks appear to undermine the EU’s Schengen system, which normally allows unrestricted travel. But in exceptional circumstances countries can reintroduce border controls under Schengen.The UN says the continuing conflict in Syria is a major factor behind the rise in migrant numbers.Greece, Italy and Hungary have particularly struggled with the surge of migrants from not only Syria but the rest of the Middle East and Africa. Next month’s extraordinary meeting of EU interior ministers was announced late on Sunday by Luxembourg.
