The leaders of Italy and Greece lashed out at Central and Eastern European countries on Wednesday over their lack of solidarity on the migration crisis, warning they may suffer for it in upcoming European Union budget negotiations.
The negotiations "will be a very difficult task for us, especially the [biggest] contributors [to the EU], without real solidarity and cooperation from all the countries on common issues," Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said.
"Me and Paolo, we tried a lot in order to convince our partners in the European Union that it is necessary to face this [migration] problem not as a Mediterranean problem ... but as a European one and and international one," Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said.
"But the problem in Europe is that there are a lot of countries which believe that if the problem is not in their backyard, it is not their problem," Tsipras added. "If somebody believes that Europe is only for benefits, they have to understand that it is not."
Gentiloni and Tsipras were speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Italy and Greece bear brunt of migrant boat landings in Europe via the Mediterranean, and bristle at the refusal of the Visegrad Group - Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary - to enforce EU burden-sharing policies on migration.
Also in Davos, the head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), William Lacy Swing, compared EU countries' lack of unity on migration to a locomotive matched to carriages whose wheels are falling off the track.
'Urgent' action needed
The EU took Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic to court in December for refusing to accept quotas for asylum-seekers.
Eastern states have been opposed ever since other EU states adopted by majority a temporary quota system in 2015 as a form of solidarity with Greece and Italy during the height of Europe's migrant crisis.
Under the plan, asylum seekers are relocated to other members of the bloc in a temporary exception to the so-called Dublin rules, which requires countries where they first land to process them.
The EU has since stalled on plans for a permanent mechanism for future crises amid resistance from the eastern countries.
Hungary has led eastern opposition to refugees and migrants, saying the region will not be able to integrate them and it will face a security threat, particularly from Muslims.
"It is very urgent to move forward in adopting a new Dublin," said Dimitris Avramopoulos, who is Greece's EU commissioner, a former Greek foreign minister and mayor of Athens. "What we need now is a strong well-balanced, and fair Dublin."
"It has to be defended because without solidarity Europe cannot exist," Avramopoulos said.
