Paris / AFP A highly contested EU deal with Turkey may not be ideal, but it is the only solution to stem the migration crisis, the bloc’s Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Christos Stylianides said on Thursday. The deal in which Turkey agrees to take back certain migrants fleeing to Greece in exchange for visa-free travel in the EU has angered member ...

  BRUSSELS / AP Turkey’s crackdown on the media and reported human rights abuses are pushing the country further away from Europe even as it hopes to join the European Union, a senior EU official said on Thursday. European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans told EU lawmakers that “the distance between us and Turkey is not decreasing, it is increasing.” “If ...

  Rome / AFP Italy and Austria were set for showdown talks on Thursday as Italian politicians and media reacted furiously to Vienna’s new anti-migrant measures that could close the border between the two countries. Austrian Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka, who has vigorously defended the controversial package which was driven by a surge of the far right, was due in ...