EU Home Affairs ministers meeting in Luxembourg failed to agree on an emergency mechanism to redistribute migrants that land in Italy and Greece.

The proposal was made by the European Commission as part of a wider plan to tackle the migration phenomenon but member states are split over the redistribution of 40,000 migrants.

Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela said he emerged from the meeting “less pessimistic” but insisted it was still a long road ahead before agreement is reached.

“The language used by some countries that opposed the redistribution proposal before the meeting was less confrontational and more moderate during the meeting and this gave me cause for hope,” Mr Abela said.

The agreement will have to be hammered out next week during the European Council meeting of heads of government but Brussels sources have indicated a decision is likely to be postponed to September.

Mr Abela said next week’s meeting would “not be an easy ride” because the political discussions were ongoing.

He said there was no mention of Italy’s Plan B during the meeting. In the wake of resistance by some member states, Italy had warned it could go for Plan B by offering migrants residence permits that enabled them to travel freely to other member states.

More than 100,000 migrants have sailed into Europe so far this year, arriving mainly in Greece and Italy.

Before today's meeting, Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European Commissioner in charge of migration, wrote to EU ministers to call for the EU’s so-called return policy to be stepped up.

The European Commission is urging EU governments to send back migrants who cannot claim asylum, taking a tougher line to convince reluctant countries to receive new refugees fleeing Syria and Eritrea.