PM Pedro Sanchez and German Chancellor Angela Merkel discuss migration at Huelva summit

SPAIN’S Prime Minister has received the German Chancellor at his Huelva summer residence with the leaders set to discuss a European Union (EU) wide approach to migration this weekend.

Pedro Sanchez and Angela Merkel are currently at the residence in the Doñana National Park where they are hoping to create a united front on migration. The meeting comes ahead of an EU summit on the subject in Salzburg in Austria in September.

Sanchez is reportedly keen to convince Merkel to back sending more money to Morocco to bolster security along its borders with the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.

The EU has so far struggled to establish common ground between member states on migration. Efforts to do so have faced opposition from the governments of Italy, Hungary and Austria where anti-immigration feeling holds sway among senior officials.

The meeting comes as both politicians face politician pressure at home to act decisively on migration.

Sanchez announced the Spanish government would open a new €30 million Migrant Processing Centre to co-ordinate the growing number of arrivals on the county’s southern coast.

Merkel has had to contend with threats from the Christian Social Union (CSU), who back her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, to walk away from their coalition pact over migration.