European Union leaders made a fresh effort over the weekend to overcome their differences on how to handle immigrants, but disagreed on the best way forward, with the head of the bloc’s executive saying there would be no EU funds for ‘barbed wire and walls’. While total immigration numbers are low compared to the bloc’s population of some 450 million people, the issue feeds support for nationalist and populist groups across the EU, making it hard to reach a compromise among its 27 members. Some 5,100 migrants arrived across the Mediterranean so far this year, U.N. data shows, and several thousand have also crossed to the three EU countries neighbouring Belarus – two of several routes into the bloc.
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