EU states consider compromise plan to ease disputes over migrants

EU governments will study a new proposal aimed at overcoming the deep splits over sharing responsibility for asylum-seekers, diplomats said on Wednesday. The disagreements have soured relations in the bloc since the migrant crisis of 2015. Estonia, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU, put forward the compromise plan at a meeting of national envoys. The plan is intended to reconcile countries like Italy, which bear the brunt of arrivals from across the Mediterranean, and eastern states fiercely opposed to being obliged to take in immigrants. Previous proposals have failed to make headway as ex-communist countries in the east have resisted attempts by the EU executive to force them to take their quotas.