President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker speaks during a joint press conference with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz on July 6, 2018 in Vienna | Herbert Neubauer/AFP via Getty Images Brussels readies new border enforcement plan With Germany’s internal crisis solved — for now — the EU seems to be getting back to Plan A: Border enforcement

VIENNA — The European Commission will put forward an ambitious plan to toughen protection of the EU's external borders by September, President Jean-Claude Juncker said Friday, as European officials seemed to talk in circles about a migration crisis that doesn't involve any increase in arrivals.

Speaking at a news conference in Vienna to mark the start of Austria's six-month presidency of the Council of the EU, Juncker said the Commission would develop the plan in response to a call by EU leaders at a summit in Brussels last week for stricter border controls, including an accelerated expansion of Frontex, the bloc's border protection service.

The recent crisis was largely precipitated by an internal political dispute in Germany between Chancellor Angela Merkel and Interior Minister Horst Seehofer. That fight focused on Seehofer's threat to impose new border control measures aimed at stopping so-called secondary movements — the crossing of internal EU borders by asylum seekers already registered in an EU country.

Seehofer traveled to Vienna on Thursday for an emergency meeting with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and other officials worried about the implications for their country and their borders of Seehofer's deal with Merkel. Kurz emerged from the meeting saying he had a guarantee that there would be no impact on Austria.

Curiously, the outcome of the meeting was a plan for another meeting next week between the interior ministers of Austria, Germany and Italy, focused on reducing the number of refugees crossing to Europe via the Central Mediterranean. The officials did not explain how the Merkel-Seehofer dispute over secondary movement morphed into a renewed joint commitment to reduce the number of primary arrivals. Still, the crisis seemed to be resolved — for the time being.

“We will try to convince those who aren’t yet convinced to split up the seven files” — Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz

The outcome of the meeting seemed to take officials full circle to the conclusions of last week's European Council summit in Brussels, where leaders called for stronger protection of the EU's external borders, and a continuing effort to reach a compromise on revising the bloc's Dublin Regulation on migration rules.

In Vienna on Friday, Juncker said the Commission is on the case.

"We agreed today that in September the Commission would make a proposal on the protection of the external borders," he said. "Between now and 2027 we want to produce an additional 10,000 border guards. We are going to bring that forward to 2020, which means that in September of this year we will make proposals with that in mind."

Kurz, who appeared alongside Juncker, said his ministers would push in Brussels for a swift compromise on five of seven files related to the asylum debate that are ready for adoption without waiting for a compromise to be found on the contentious rest, mainly the reform of the Dublin rules.

“We will try to convince those who aren’t yet convinced to split up the seven files,” Kurz said.

In a comment that seems mostly dismissive of whatever Seehofer had agreed with Merkel, Juncker said he has heard nothing that would require a change in EU policy. “I’ve read that it won’t come to legislative changes,” Juncker said of the asylum compromise found by Germany’s coalition late Thursday, adding that “insofar” the package seemed to be in line with EU law.

Kurz said that whatever Germany is doing ,it appears to be a good thing.

"The fact that Germany is now tackling this issue is now something which is basically welcome because we know if large countries get involved at the European level this can improve the overall dynamic," Kurz said.

Juncker, in response to a question about the situation in Germany, said it provided a good opportunity to simply support the Commission's own proposals on migration and asylum policy. “If one can’t find compromise, one should just take the Commission’s proposal," Juncker said.