Greece, Italy face off against easterners in EU migration feud

The European Union's tug of war over how to share out the burden of caring for asylum-seekers is not over, Slovakia's interior minister said on Friday after six months of trying unsuccessfully to bridge differences between member states.

Central and Eastern European governments opposed to taking in refugees are at loggerheads with countries on the frontline of the crisis such as Greece and Italy. Nearly all the 350,000 migrants to reach Europe's shores this year have arrived in those two countries.

"It is very important that there is a common agreement, which is what we still don't have now," said the Slovak minister, Robert Kalinak, arriving in Brussels to chair the last meeting of EU interior ministers under his country's presidency of the bloc.

"We need to work more with our colleagues from Poland and Hungary, and also Greece and Italy on the other...