ZAGREB, June 22, 2018 - At least 16 European Union member states, including Croatia, will attend on Sunday afternoon an informal meeting on migration and asylum convened by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
Juncker said two days ago he was "convening an informal working meeting on migration and asylum issues... in order to work with a group of heads of state or government of member states interested in finding European solutions."
The Commission did not initially say who was invited. There was only mention of Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Bulgaria, Greece and Malta.
Commission spokesman Alexander Winterstein said on Friday another eight counties had signalled their interest in attending: Croatia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Slovenia. "This is an open invitation, nobody is excluded, everybody is invited and nobody... is forced to attend, he said.
The Visegrad Group countries, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, have refused to attend.
Winterstein said there would be no press conference on Sunday and that no decision would be made as the meeting was informal.
Convening a mini-summit just days before a regular EU28 summit was not welcomed by European Council President Donald Tusk, who presides over EU summits.
The spokesman of the German government said today one should not expect a common solution to the migration issue on the EU28 summit on June 28-29 and that it was therefore necessary to find bilateral and multilateral solutions at Sunday's mini summit.
