Migrants disembark from the Italian coast guard boat the Dattilo at the port of Valencia on June 17 | Pau Barrena/AFP via Getty Images EU leaders consider centers outside bloc to process refugees Draft conclusions for the European Council summit next week propose the creation of ‘disembarkation platforms.’

European Council President Donald Tusk has proposed that EU leaders create "regional disembarkation platforms" outside the European Union, where officials could quickly differentiate between refugees in need of protection and economic migrants who would potentially face return to their countries of origin.

The proposal is an effort to break the acute political crisis over migration and asylum that has bedeviled EU leaders since 2015 — and even threatened in recent days to topple the German government — even as the numbers of arrivals have plummeted since the peak of the crisis.

The disembarkation platform concept — which officials said would have to be implemented in cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) — could create a formal mechanism by which the EU can bridge the divide between hard-line leaders calling for tough border controls and those insisting that EU nations obey international law and welcome refugees in need of protection.

But the idea could also open EU leaders to criticism that they are outsourcing their political problem by creating centers for people seeking entry in countries on the periphery of the bloc. Among the potential partner nations are Tunisia and Albania, but officials say it is far too soon to speculate.

The idea to create such facilities was suggested in 2016 by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the strongest critic of the EU's policies on migration — especially on the relocation of refugees across Europe.

More recently, French President Emmanuel Macron has endorsed the idea, and on Sunday Italian Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero said Italy wants to officially put the idea on the table at the European Council summit.

According to the draft guidelines, the new sites would "establish a more predictable framework for dealing with those who nevertheless set out to sea and are rescued in Search And Rescue Operations."

The conclusions state: "Such platforms should provide for rapid processing to distinguish between economic migrants and those in need of international protection, and reduce the incentive to embark on perilous journeys."

The conclusions also call for an increase in financing in the next long-term EU budget for border control and other measures. And they call for "a further push to improve the Libyan Coast Guard to prevent departures from Libya."

Tusk has issued the draft guidelines to EU capitals, and will be discussing the proposals in a blitz of meetings across the Continent and phone calls in the days ahead of the European Council summit next Thursday and Friday in Brussels. Tusk is in Stockholm today to meet Prime Minister Stefan Löfven and then heads to Madrid to see Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

Tusk will hold crucial meetings tomorrow in Italy — one of the frontier countries most affected by migrant and refugee arrivals — with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and President Sergio Mattarella.

The draft conclusions do not yet take a definitive position on the big legislative package on migration, including an overhaul of the EU's so-called Dublin Regulation on asylum. The draft text includes an indication in square brackets that language on the Dublin Regulation is still to come. Tusk continues to consult leaders, who have been deeply divided over how to rewrite the asylum rules.

One official called the disembarkation platform idea a "potential game-changer." That may be overly optimistic. But officials are clearly in need of a strategy to ease the political crisis, which many say is now overblown considering the reduced numbers of arrivals.

At a meeting in Vienna, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and European Parliament President Antonio Tajani called for much stronger control of Europe's external borders, and said that political leaders — not smugglers — should be setting the rules about who arrives in the EU. "If we can't protect our borders, this will mean the end of Europe," Kurz said.

Tajani said that urgent political action is needed, including stepped up efforts in Africa, to stem the tide of economic migrants. "Europe needs to have the strength to make political decisions," Tajani said.

"We don’t want concentration camps," Tajani said, adding that the EU needs to differentiate between irregular economic migrants who should be turned back and those needing asylum, such as Christians fleeing the Islamic State.

"We want centers where people find shelter, where they can find medicine, where there is no violence against women," Tajani said.

One open question is where such “disembarkation platforms” would be located. Along with Morocco and Egypt, Tunisia has not shown any enthusiasm for hosting the centers, and opening them there could risk destabilizing the region's sole post-Arab Spring democracy.

Safety, too, is a factor. The majority of EU countries don’t have an embassy in Libya because of security concerns, and it is difficult to see the UNHCR and IOM playing a bigger role if their safety were not fully guaranteed.

Benas Gerdziunas contributed reporting.

This article has been updated.