EU states at odds on eve of summit on migration crisis

Austria threatened to reimpose controls on its Hungarian border and Britain considered adding security around the French port of Calais on June 24 as divided EU leaders prepared to debate how to stem a flood of desperate migrants.

On the eve of a Brussels summit looking for ways to spread the load of receiving hundreds of thousands fleeing poverty and war in Africa and the Middle East, the frontier rows across the 28-nation bloc were a reminder that the stakes are high.

Austria's warning about reinstating checks on its passport-free border with Hungary follows a refusal by Budapest to take in asylum seekers sent back to it by other member states under EU rules.

Hungary says it no longer has the means to deal with a sharp increase in people streaming over its Balkan border - many from the Middle East, including via crisis-wracked Greece.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, who will also use the summit to launch demands to limit free access for other EU citizens ahead of referendum on EU membership, played down any tension with France over thousands of migrants massed around Calais hoping to reach Britain by ferry or the Channel Tunnel.

But he said his ministers were looking at ways to add border guards and dogs around the port of Calais and the entrance to the rail tunnel after dramatic scenes on June 23 when disruption caused by a ferry strike gave an opportunity to large crowds to try to stow away on trucks waiting in line.

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