The ominous edifice on Avenue de Cortenbergh has been identified as a suitable venue for a closed-door meeting of European leaders ahead of the next EU summit, scheduled for the middle of December. Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lövfen and his Greek counterpart Alexis Tsipras are going to be present, as are French President François Hollande, Chancellor Angela Merkel, the leaders of the Benalux countries and the Austrian chancellor. So that the rest of the EU member states don't feel left out, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker will also take a seat at the negotiating table. Once again, the subject of the meeting will be the refugee crisis and the fragile alliance that Merkel is currently relying on to bring the ongoing flow of migrants from the Middle East under control. Together with Turkey and a number of countries in the heart of Europe, Merkel is hoping to seal a complicated deal she recently agreed to with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu at the last EU summit. Essentially, it calls for Europe to provide billions in aid to Turkey in exchange for Ankara doing all it can to prevent Syrian refugees from traveling onward to Europe. Once those conditions have been fulfilled, however, the plan calls for the EU to accept a contingent of Syrian refugees, the size of which would likely be several hundred thousand. The scheme even has a provisional name: Merkel's Chief of Staff Peter Altmaier recently referred to it in an interview with SPIEGEL as the "Coalition of the Willing."
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