(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) The President of the European Council Donald Tusk announced Monday that he has called an extraordinary summit of the 28 EU leaders to discuss migratory pressures in the Mediterranean, in Brussels on Thursday.
"The situation in the Mediterranean is dramatic. It cannot continue like this. We cannot accept that hundreds of people die when trying to cross the sea to Europe. This is why I have decided to call an extraordinary European Council this Thursday," he said in a statement.
The top-level European meeting has been called after hundreds of migrants were feared drowned in a boat capsize off Libya on Sunday.
Tusk said the objective of the summit "is to discuss, at the highest level, what we, the Member States and the EU institutions together, can and must do to alleviate the situation now." He, however, cautioned that "I do not expect any quick-fix solutions to the root causes of migration - because there are none. Had they existed, we would have used them long ago." Tusk said he that the expects the European Commission and the European External Action Service will present options for immediate action.
"The situation in the Mediterranean concerns not only the countries in our Southern neighborhood, it concerns all of us, all of Europe. That is way we need to act, and act together, now," he added.
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