Refugee crisis continues to create rift between pro-Europeans, Eurosceptics

"The refugee crisis isn't a competition between the political groups of the European Parliament! The populists want to use the migration crisis to destroy Europe," deplored Guy Verhofstadt, speaking for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE).

"The European Council from December must make decisions on the common borders and translate them on the budgetary plan in order to put in place a real multinational border police," he added.

The joint declaration adopted on Sunday prescribes 17 measures set to "restore order" to EU borders, "slow the uncontrolled flux of people" and "discourage the movement of refugees or migrants toward the border of another country in the region."

Nearly 400 police officers should be sent to assist Slovenia, a small country of two million inhabitants where 60,000 migrants have entered since mid-October, and which has become a new transit zone since Hungary, most notably, closed its external borders with the EU.

In an interview published Sunday with the popular German daily newspaper Bild, the President of the European Commission called the Balkan countries to break with the "policy of letting pass."

It was a line not to the taste of certain MEPs, such as the leader of the radical Spanish left Podemos, Pablo Iglesias who didn't hesitate to question Juncker directly and to condemn vehemently the "crocodile tears" shed during the debate while "the humiliation and the misery of the refugees continue."

At the approach of the international summit on migration which is scheduled to be held in Malta Nov. 11 and 12, the President of the European Commission could only call on European leaders to stop mutually accusing each other and to respect their commitments, not only morally, but financially.

"Before its African friends, the EU must be at the rendezvous, pockets filled, not only with promises but also with commitments," he declared.