The European Union on Monday was trying to shape its response to a possible refugee crisis from Syria, as the bloc's interior ministers were gathering for informal talks in Cyprus, Nicosia, dpa reported.
As the current EU presidency, Cyprus put the issue on the table. The island nation, located only 170 kilometers from Syria, has already an emergency plan ready to temporarily host up 200,000 people in case foreigners are evacuated from Syria and Lebanon.
In Nicosia, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) was due to brief ministers about how Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey were dealing with the separate issue of Syrian refugees - as of July, there were already more than 100,000 who had fled the conflict in their country.
Ministers should "get a picture of the situation" from the UNHCR, discuss how to help Syria's neighbours and prepare for "possible migration flows from the region," Cypriot Interior Minister Eleni Mavrou said before the meeting.
In a discussion paper published ahead of the meeting, the Cypriot presidency suggested that the EU could help Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq by funding UNHCR activities in their territories through a so-called Regional Protection Programme.
"The more reception capacities are strengthened in the region the less likely it is that (EU) member states will face disproportionate burdens on their asylum systems," the paper said.
The UNHCR is already managing EU-funded Regional Protection Programmes to oversee migration flows in Eastern Europe, the Great Lakes region, the Horn of Africa and in North East Africa.
EU ministers were also expected to coordinate their asylum policies. All countries in the bloc are thought to have stopped returning people to Syria, but they still have disparate approaches regarding asylum applications from the war-ravaged country.