Chancellor says EU leaders ready to meet to discuss refugee crisis

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday that European Union leaders stand ready for an emergency meeting, if needed, to discuss the refugee crisis but she added that EU interior ministers were already working intensively to find solutions.

"The heads of state and governments are standing ready to meet if the preliminary work is done and if it's necessary to hold an emergency summit," she said at a news conference in Berlin.

"There are already very intensive efforts at the EU level taking place about how we can better cope with this issue," she added, noting that a summit would make sense if decisions had to be taken by EU leaders after interior ministers finish the work.

EU leaders declared this week that the EU has failed in the face of human agony on its frontiers.