Refugees arriving in Europe should be detained for up to 18 months in holding centres across the EU while they are screened for security and terrorism risks, the president of the European council has said.

Donald Tusk also put himself strongly at odds with Europe’s most powerful politician, Angela Merkel, by declaring that there was no majority among European governments for a binding quotas system to share refugees between them. The mandatory refugee-sharing regime is the German chancellor’s chief policy for dealing with the migration crisis, not least since about 1 million are expected to enter Germany this year.

In a lengthy interview with the Guardian and five other European newspapers, Tusk, the former Polish prime minister, described Merkel’s open-door policy on refugees as “dangerous” and derided data claiming that Syrian-war refugees made up a majority of those trying to get to Europe. Public confidence in governments’ ability to tackle the immigration crisis would only be restored by a stringent new system of controls on the EU’s external borders, he said.

Tusk’s remarks contradicted Berlin’s stance and also the asylum policies being drafted across the street from his Brussel’s office in the European commission.

In a reference to Merkel’s comment on the migration crisis, Tusk said “some” European leaders “said that this wave of migrants is too big to stop. I’m absolutely sure that we have to say that this wave of migrants is too big not to stop them. But this change of approach must be a common effort. It’s not about one leader.

“I think that what we can expect from our leaders today is to change this mindset, this opinion, [which is] for me one of the most dangerous in this time.”

In a warning to the rest of Europe, Merkel recently told the Bundestag that the survival of the EU’s free-travel Schengen area hinged on whether national governments could agree on a permanent new regime of sharing refugees. In September she pressed for a majority vote at an EU summit making the sharing of 160,000 refugees obligatory despite strong resistance from eastern Europe.

Berlin and the commission are now pushing for a more ambitious permanent scheme directly resettling refugees across the EU from Turkey and the Middle East.

Tusk said there was no majority among EU governments for a binding quota system sharing of refugees. Photograph: Isopix/Rex Shutterstock

Tusk brusquely dismissed this. “There is no majority in Europe to win when it comes to resettlement or the next phase of [refugee] relocation. And not because of the eastern and central parts of Europe only. But many more countries.

“In the mid-term and long-term perspective, we can’t use qualified majority voting as something like political coercion … [There are] more countries sceptical towards a permanent and obligatory mechanism. And I can understand why.

“All member states will be ready to show more solidarity if they feel that Europe as a whole is ready to protect external borders more effectively. I mean that they are able to reduce this number of refugees, because that is the biggest fear today in Europe.

“Debate today is not among politicians or intellectuals or commentators. For the first time in many, many years, I have noticed the debate is really public because the fear and uncertainty is so genuine. You can feel this fear, these feelings on the street. We are talking about our capacities in Europe. No one is ready today to receive these kind of numbers, including Germany.”

His remarks highlighted the ever-deepening rift within the EU over how to deal with the refugee crisis.

Tusk’s opposition to Berlin also puts Merkel in a tight spot as she appears increasingly isolated both at home and in Europe over migration policy. She may be abandoning hopes of securing sufficient support for a new EU-wide system. But defeat for Merkel would come at a price, with bitterness growing in Germany at the lack of solidarity being shown by the country’s EU partners in the crisis. Similar rancour is evident in Sweden, which proportionately takes in more refugees than anywhere else in the EU.

“It’s not only about reducing the flow of migrants,” said Tusk. “Please don’t downplay the role of security. If you want to screen migrants and refugees, you need more time than only one minute to fingerprint. In international law and also in European law we have this rule of 18 months as the time for screening we need. You can and you should retain migrants as long as screening is ready [until screening is completed].

“It’s not only an obligation for frontline countries. We can do it in many parts of Europe. But we need to say very openly that we will do it. Also for security reasons, but not only for this. We have to. This is why fear is so tangible and, in fact, justified. It is the first time in our history that we have to fight this kind of amount and this kind of problem.

“This control on our external borders, and procedures inside the frontline countries, but also in some other countries, is something that will reduce this readiness to go to Europe. Today access to Europe is, simply speaking, too easy.”

Tusk suggested that it was a myth that the majority of refugees reaching Europe were Syrians in flight from war and said that more than two-thirds were irregular migrants who should be turned back.

According to the International Organisation for Migration, nearly two-thirds or 64% of people crossing from Turkey into the EU via the Greek islands by October this year were Syrians – 388,000 of a total of 608,000. A quarter of those making the crossing were children, the IOM said this week. Of 12 deaths in the past week, nine were children and 90 died in October alone. Half of the children arriving in Europe this year were from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the IOM said.

Tusk contested this. “I’m talking about migrants. Sorry, but it is something like a justification that we have refugees [who are] only Syrian and that’s why we have to be as open as today. It’s not true.

“Syrians are only the 28-30% of the influx. Seventy per cent of them are [irregular] migrants. This is why we need more effective controls. It’s obvious.”