EU risks 'tectonic changes'

Europe's worst migration crisis since World War II risks triggering "tectonic changes", a top EU official warned yesterday, as figures showed more than 700,000 newcomers reached the continent's Mediterranean shores so far this year.

Leaders of France and Germany were due to discuss the crisis which has also prompted a spat between the premier of Germany's Bavaria state and neighbouring Austria over its handling of migrants.

"The situation will deteriorate even further," European Council president Donald Tusk said, warning of a "new wave of refugees (arriving) from Aleppo and other Syrian regions under Russian bombardment".

"I have no doubt that this challenge has the potential to change the European Union we have built," he told the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

"And what is even more dangerous, it has the potential to create tectonic changes in the European political landscape. And these are not changes for the better."

Meanwhile, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker slammed EU member states for only providing less than half of the experts pledged to the bloc's Frontex border agency in migrant hotspots Greece and Italy.

"Member states have been moving slowly at a time when they should be running," he said.

Of the 775 border guards needed, EU countries have only provided 326 over the past month, Juncker said, adding that many bloc members had also failed so far to keep their promises of financial support.

The stinging criticism came just days after the EU vowed to help set up 100,000 places in reception centres in Greece and along the route through the Balkans.

The move is part of a 17-point action plan devised with the countries most affected by the crisis.

More than half of this year's arrivals in Europe were from Syria, followed by Afghanistan and Iraq, the UN refugee agency said yesterday.

Some 562,355 people desperately fleeing war and misery reached Greece's shores, while around 140,000 arrived in Italy since January.

Children made up 20 percent of the arrivals, the agency said.

Of these, at least 3,210 people have either died or gone missing as they made the journey plagued with danger. International Organization for Migration reported the arrival of 5,239 people in Greece on Saturday and 4,199 on Sunday.