EU President: Divide between 'east and the west of the EU'

European Union President Donald Tusk on Thursday said that division between eastern and western EU member states were complicating efforts to resolve the EU's migrant crisi.

"There is a divide...between the east and the west of the EU. Some member states are thinking about containing the wave of migration, symbolised by the Hungarian (border) fence," Tusk said, speaking to a conference of EU ambassadors.

"Others want solidarity in advocating a so-called obligatory basis for quotas. The key challenge is to find for them all a common, yet ambitious, denominator," he said prior to talks with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

He added that he was "working with leaders to build a new consensus among governments on the EU response."

"The first goal to ensure people in need of international protection receive it. Second, we must gain more control of mass population flows."