|
 Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking after a weekend in which 20,000
migrants entered Germany from Hungary by train, bus and on foot,
described the influx as "breathtaking" and tried to reassure the
country the crisis was manageable.
Dramatic images from last week, especially a photograph of a Syrian
toddler drowned on a Turkish beach, have created new political
pressure to open doors, even in countries that argued previously
that taking in too many migrants could make the problem worse by
encouraging others to make dangerous voyages.
"I am happy that Germany has become a country that many people
outside of Germany now associate with hope," she said at a news
conference in Berlin.
But she and her vice chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, coupled their
message of optimism with a warning to EU partners who have resisted
a push from Berlin, Paris and Brussels to agree to quotas for
refugees flowing in mainly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
 "What isn't acceptable in my view is that some people are saying
this has nothing to do with them," Merkel said. "This won't work in
the long run. There will be consequences although we don't want
that."
Gabriel said that if countries in eastern Europe and elsewhere
continued to resist accepting their fair share of refugees, the
bloc's open border regime, known as Schengen, would be at risk.
"This would be a dramatic political blow for Europe, but also a
heavy economic blow, also for those countries that are saying they
don't want to help now," he said.
At Roszke, on Hungary's border with Serbia, around 300 migrants
broke through a cordon around a reception camp and set off down the
wrong side of the motorway towards the capital Budapest, Reuters
witnesses said.
Police were unable to prevent their escape despite using pepper
spray as migrants scuffled with officers.
Only months after Europe narrowly averted a Greek exit from the euro
zone, the refugee have emerged as the bloc's biggest challenge.
Greece asked the European Union for aid on Monday to prevent it
being overwhelmed by refugees, as a minister said arrivals on Lesbos
had swollen to three times as many as the island could handle.
The crisis also spilled into Denmark as some 800 people entered the
country from Germany and tried to head to Sweden while politicians
argued about Copenhagen's immigration policies.
MAIN ENTRY POINTS
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is due to unveil
new proposals on Wednesday on how to distribute refugees among
member states.
 An EU source told Reuters that under Juncker's plan, Germany would
take on more than 40,000 and France 30,000 of the 160,000 asylum
seekers the Commission says need to be relocated from Italy, Greece
and Hungary, the main entry points to the EU for refugees arriving
by sea and land.
The 160,000 that Juncker wants to redistribute within the EU are
just a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of refugees and
economic migrants from Asia, Africa and the Middle East who have
reached Europe this year on leaky boats across the Mediterranean or
over land through the Balkan peninsula. Many have died en route.
Germany has announced it is letting Syrians seek asylum regardless
of where they enter the EU, suspending normal rules and accelerating
a flow of migrants north and west from the edges of the bloc.
Just last month, more than 100,000 asylum seekers reached Germany,
which is preparing for 800,000 this year, around one percent of its
population, a move with little precedent for a large Western
country.
France said it would take in up to 1,000 migrants currently in
Germany as a matter of urgency, before the adoption of the European
Commission plan.
[to top of second column] |
Britain would resettle 20,000 refugees from Syria over the next five
years, Prime Minister David Cameron announced, responding to a
growing public clamor for his government to do more to help.
Some rights groups have criticized the United States for not doing
more to help. A White House spokesman said the Obama administration
was "actively considering a range of approaches to be more
responsive to the global refugee crisis, including with regard to
refugee resettlement".
Pope Francis called over the weekend for Christian communities
across the continent to offer sanctuary.
Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban, a right-wing populist whose
hard line during the crisis has drawn both praise and criticism,
reiterated his opposition to quotas on Monday, calling this debate
premature. Juncker's proposal would exempt the main entry countries
Hungary, Greece and Italy from taking relocated refugees.
Hungary's defense minister, Hende Csaba, resigned because the armed
forces were being too slow in building a border fence to keep out
refugees and migrants.
Officials in Bavaria, the southern German state that has become the
entry point for migrants arriving from Hungary via Austria, said
about 4,400 had arrived in Munich on Monday. Another 1,500 were on
trains heading on to cities elsewhere in Germany.
At Munich's international trade fair grounds, three halls have been
given over to the effort, with more than 2,000 camp beds and a
dining hall with hot food.
The few rucksacks and plastic bags the travelers had arrived with
were scattered between the beds. Some children kicked a soccer ball
around outside.
"For the families it's too hard. For the single guys I think it's
good to come. If somebody has some money or a passport for a visa,
it's better," said Hassan Halabi from Aleppo in Syria, who hopes to
go to Konstanz on the Swiss border.
Merkel's welcome to migrants has been praised by human rights
groups. But there were signs of dissent within her conservative
camp, with officials from the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU),
sister party of her Christian Democrats, criticizing her handling of
the crisis. There have also been attacks on shelters, including two
early on Monday.
"There is no society that could cope with something like this," CSU
leader and Bavarian premier Horst Seehofer said. "The federal
government needs a plan here."
(Additional reporting by Caroline Copley, Michael Nienaber, Michelle
Martin, Angelika Gruber, Thorsten Severin, Holger Hansen,
Hans-Edzard Busemann, Andreas Rinke, Ayhan Uyanik, Michael Shields,
Thomas Escritt, Michel Rose, Franceso Guarascio, Alastair Macdonald,
Sabina Zawadzki, Karolina Tagaris, Doina Chiacu; Writing by Noah
Barkin; Editing by Nick Macfie)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
