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 Chairman Donald Tusk said the meeting, which ended early on
Thursday after seven hours of talks in Brussels, was "really
excellent, for sure much better than we expected".
He heard "very substantial and energetic" exchanges between the
Austrian and Hungarian leaders, whose common border was among those
disrupted by chaotic crowds of migrants this summer, but not the
mutual recrimination that has threatened to tear apart the bloc's
cherished passport-free Schengen zone.
"Today's meeting and this atmosphere are a very positive sign," said
European Council President Tusk, a former prime minister of Poland.
"It's quite a symbolic moment for me as it's clear we have stopped
this risky blame game."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, criticized by some eastern
neighbors for what they saw as actions that have fueled the influx
of people trying to reach Germany, voiced satisfaction:
"We know that the problem is not solved with the decision taken. But
we have taken one of many necessary steps. I got the feeling that we
want to tackle this task together."
 Held at short notice after governments fell out badly over a scheme
to share out responsibilities for asylum-seekers around the EU, the
summit carried political rather than legal weight. A joint statement
read: "We can only manage this challenge by working together in a
spirit of solidarity and responsibility."
RAPID ACTIONS
Among short-term actions before the next regular summit in
mid-October, the EU would offer at least 1 billion euros more to the
U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, its World Food Programme and other
agencies and increase funding for Syrian refugees in Turkey, Jordan,
Lebanon and other countries -- part of a broad push to ease factors
driving Syrians to risk sailing to Europe.
"It is close to the scene of the tragedy that the refugees must be
kept, welcomed, supported," said French President Francois Hollande,
renewing a call for global cooperation by wealthy powers to take in
some of the most needy cases.
As part of efforts to win cooperation from Turkey, locked in a long
love-hate relationship with Europe and host to some 2 million Syrian
refugees, Tusk and EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker will host
President Tayyip Erdogan on Oct. 5.
The summit set a November deadline for Greece and Italy to have
EU-staffed "hotspots" in place to register and fingerprint new
arrivals and start a process of relocating Syrians and others likely
to win refugee status to other EU states and deporting those
regarded as unwanted economic migrants.
 That is a demand of Germany and France but also of ex-communist
states like Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia which fought
against being obliged to take a share of asylum-seekers but were
over-ruled in a rare vote on such a sensitive issue at a ministerial
meeting on Tuesday.
The accords may do little to ease the immediate chaos and tension
which has flared, for example between old Yugoslav foes Croatia and
Serbia, or to slow the rafts reaching Greek islands from Turkey.
"The measures we have agreed today will not end the crisis," Tusk
said. "But they are all necessary steps in the right direction ...
Tonight we have a common understanding that we cannot continue like
we did before. Without changing the current paradigm the Schengen
area will only exist in theory."
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ITALY SATISFIED
Establishing a principle of "relocating" some asylum-seekers has
been a key demand of Italy in particular, which wants to end a rule
that states they should remain in the first EU state they enter.
Northern countries accuse Italy and Greece of undermining the
Schengen area by simply letting migrants move on unchecked.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said a package of EU-run
relocations and deportations and EU-funded frontier forces meant
Rome's partners had finally accepted demands it has been making for
years to spread the load of migrant arrivals by sea.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban gave a robust defense of the
razor-wire fencing he has erected to keep out migrants; he insisted
he was only following EU rules and said that if Greece could not
defend its borders, Athens should ask for help.
On a visit to Germany earlier in the day, Orban accused Berlin of
"moral imperialism" for encouraging Syrian refugees to try and reach
the German frontier. But in Brussels he said he would not criticize
Germany whom he praised as a valued partner.
Orban's Slovak ally, Prime Minister Robert Fico, said he would
challenge in EU courts the imposition of quotas on states for taking
in 120,000 asylum-seekers from Italy and Greece.
"We have been refusing this nonsense from the beginning, and as a
sovereign country we have the right to sue," Fico said.
Collectively, national leaders were chided by the executive European
Commission when it named 19 countries for breaches of EU asylum
laws. The Commission, among proposals adopted at its weekly meeting
on Wednesday, also called on them to reverse cuts in their funding
for the World Food Programme.
Overall, Juncker said, the EU had doubled the funds targeted to deal
with migration to 9.5 billion euros.
(Additional reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek, Robin Emmott,
Francesco Guarascio, Andreas Rinke, Jean-Baptiste Vey and Tom
Koerkemeier; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Tom
Heneghan/Mark Heinrich)
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