Wounded Merkel meets Balkan leaders

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, hurt by a string of dismal election results over her refugees policy, was in Vienna yesterday for talks with leaders of countries along the Balkan migrant route.

They included Hungary's premier Victor Orban, scornful of Merkel's "open-door" stance, Alexis Tsipras of Greece, home to 60,000 stranded migrants, and Boyko Borisov of newly under-pressure Bulgaria.

Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern said that the aim of the talks, also attended by top EU officials, was to "accelerate" momentum towards ending Europe's worst migration crisis since 1945.

He said that this included "massively improving" the securing of the EU's outer borders, more efforts to look after refugees in the region they come from and, longer term, a "Marshall Plan" for Africa.

"At the moment there is a range of individual measures but no common European line," Kern told the Kleine Zeitung daily.

Last year hundreds of thousands of people, many fleeing the Syrian war, trekked up from Greece through the western Balkans northwards, particularly into Austria, Germany and Scandinavia.

In March, under pressure from Austria, Balkan countries closed their borders, and the flow has since slowed dramatically, although 100-150 still make it to Austria every day, Vienna says.

The same month the EU struck a deal with Turkey -- home to more than three million refugees -- under which Ankara halted the influx in return for billions in aid and other sweeteners.

More than 300,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean this year, the UN said on Tuesday, down from 520,000 from the first nine months of 2015.

But deaths this year -- 3,500 so far -- could exceed last year's total.