Migrant Crisis Hits 'Unprecedented Proportions'

EU ministers will gather for an extraordinary meeting in two weeks' time to discuss how to tackle the migrant crisis which has reached "unprecedented proportions".

The increasing number of people who have died travelling from conflict-hit countries to Europe by land and at sea has forced governments to respond.

Luxembourg, which holds the rotating EU presidency, called interior ministers from all 28 member states to the talks on 14 September, saying: "The situation of migration phenomena outside and inside the European Union has recently taken unprecedented proportions."

It comes as Home Secretary Theresa May called for the free movement of people within the EU to be limited to those who have a job.

Writing in the Sunday Times, Mrs May said that EU rules were "the biggest single factor" preventing Britain from reaching its immigration targets.

"When it was first enshrined, free movement meant the freedom to move to a job, not the freedom to cross borders to look for work or claim benefits," she wrote.

"Yet last year, four out of 10 EU migrants, 63,000 people, came here with no definite job whatsoever.

"We must take some big decisions, face down powerful interests and reinstate the original principle underlying free movement within the EU."

Mrs May's call came days after new figures showed that net migration to Britain was an estimated 330,000 in the year to March - the highest number of record.

Europe has been shaken by a string of recent migrant tragedies. Just days ago, 71 people, including four children, were found dead in a lorry in Austria.

And three children needed hospital treatment after they were rescued from a separate lorry carrying 26 migrants, also in Austria.

In the Mediterranean, around 250 people died as two boats full of people capsized last Thursday in the latest tragedy at sea. The bodies of two suspected migrants found floating in the Mediterranean were recovered by the Italian Navy on Saturday.

Mrs May said the deaths of migrants should be a "wake-up call" for Brussels that the Schengen agreement, which Britain is not a part of, has "exacerbated" the "tragedies".

John Cridland, of the Confederation of British Industry, said it would be concerning if EU workers had to be hired for a job before arriving in the UK "as this would cause issues for firms without the capacity to advertise and recruit across the whole of Europe".

He said: "The evidence shows that the vast majority of people coming from the EU to the UK come to work and benefit our economy.

"Our hospitals and care homes couldn't function without overseas workers; building sites that we need to deliver more homes and big infrastructure projects would also stall, for example."

Mrs May's call for limits to the freedom of movement is likely to irk EU partners at a time when David Cameron is renegotiating the terms of Britain's relationship with Brussels ahead of a referendum - in the next few days he will visit Portugal and Spain for further talks on the matter.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has previously said the free movement of people is a non-negotiable pillar of the EU.

:: Destination Europe: Row Brewing Over Human Tide