EU sets July 20 deadline to reach deal on migration

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - The European Union failed on Thursday to reach a deal to resolve a migration crisis in the Mediterranean, and instead set a deadline of July 20 to reach an agreement on how to redistribute 40,000 asylum seekers currently in Italy and Greece. "We made progress but we are not there yet," Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European Commissioner responsible for migration, told reporters after a meeting of European interior ministers in Luxembourg. The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, proposed in May to relocate 60,000 refugees over the next two years. Two-thirds of them would be sent from Italy and Greece to other EU states, while the remaining 20,000 would be resettled directly from their countries of origin or transit. Germany and France announced on Thursday that they would jointly take in more than 20,000 refugees in the next two years. Poland said it would take 2,000. Several other EU countries made commitments, diplomats said, but did not disclose figures, while Austria, Slovakia and Spain refused to make formal pledges. "We made progress, but some countries will only give precise numbers in the coming days," France's Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said on the sidelines of the meeting. Another ministerial meeting has been called for July 20 in Brussels to seek a definitive deal, Luxembourg Foreign and Immigration Minister Jean Asselborn told reporters   [caption id="attachment_78835" align="alignnone" width="450"] A leaflet with the slogan "I am a migrant" is placed on the desk of a Member of the European Parliament during a debate on the latest tragedies in the Mediterranean and E.U. migration and asylum policies at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, in this April 29, 2015 file photo. REUTERS/Vincent Kessler[/caption]