EU's Tusk warns 'time is short' to beat populists

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EU leaders are running out of time to reassure their citizens the European Union can control migration before authoritarian politicians win the high-stakes debate, the bloc's president Donald Tusk warned Wednesday.

In a letter inviting the leaders to the EU summit starting Thursday, Tusk proposed new steps to bolster external borders, including setting up migrant reception centers in North Africa.

"More and more people are starting to believe that only strong-handed authority, anti-European and anti-liberal in spirit, with a tendency towards overt authoritarianism, is capable of stopping the wave of illegal migration," Tusk said.

June 19, 2018: European Union Council President Donald Tusk attends a news conference in Stockholm, Sweden. /VCG Photo

"If people believe them, that only they can offer an effective solution to the migration crisis, they will also believe anything else they say," Tusk added.

"The stakes are very high. And time is short," the European Council president warned.

Tusk said the EU collectively reduced illegal border crossings by 96 percent from the peak of more than one million in 2015 when Europe faced its worst migration crisis since World War II.

In order to bolster the external border, he proposed the summit endorse "disembarkation platforms outside Europe" to separate genuine refugees from economic migrants, who can legally be sent back to their home countries.

His comments came after a German charity rescue vessel was expected to dock in Malta later Wednesday following a six-day standoff over which countries would take in the more than 200 North African migrants on board.

Cooperation deals with Libya and Turkey, the main transit countries, have been credited with having sharply reduced migration.

(Cover: Migrants, part of a group intercepted aboard a dinghy off the coast in the Strait of Gibraltar, stand after arriving on a rescue boat at the port of Tarifa, southern Spain, June 26, 2018. /VCG Photo)

(With input from AFP)