EU risks 'tectonic changes' as migrant flow swells to over 700,000

Migrants and refugees, who spent the night outdoors, are escorted by Slovenian soldiers and police

Europe's worst migration crisis since World War II risks triggering "tectonic changes", a top EU official warned Tuesday, as figures showed more than 700,000 newcomers have reached the continent's Mediterranean shores this year.
"The situation will deteriorate even further," European Council president Donald Tusk said, warning of a "new wave of refugees (arriving) from Aleppo and other Syrian regions under Russian bombardment".
"I have no doubt that this challenge has the potential to change the European Union we have built," he told the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
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"And what is even more dangerous, it has the potential to create tectonic changes in the European political landscape. And these are not changes for the better."
European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker meanwhile slammed EU member states for providing less than half of the guards pledged to the bloc's Frontex border agency in migrant hotspots Greece and Italy.
"Member states have been moving slowly at a time when they should be running," he said.

Of the 775 border guards needed, EU countries have only provided 326 over the past month, Juncker said, adding that many bloc members had also failed so far to keep their promises of financial support.
The stinging criticism came after the EU vowed to help set up 100,000 places in reception centres in Greece and along the migrant route through the Balkans as part of a 17-point action plan devised with the countries most affected by the crisis.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande held talks in Paris on Tuesday, with a French official saying afterwards the two shared "the same position on what should be done politically and... on the front line".
More than half of this year's arrivals in Europe so far have been from Syria, which has been torn apart by a four-year civil war, followed by Afghanistan and Iraq, the UN refugee agency said Tuesday.
"They have a right to seek asylum without any form of discrimination," said UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien, warning the worsening crisis in Syria meant some 13.5 million people were now in need of assistance.
"This is one of the largest displacement crises of modern times."