|
 German chancellor Angela Merkel called on her peers on Sunday to
accept joint responsibility.
"Germany is willing to help. But it is not just a German challenge,
but one for all of Europe," Merkel told a gathering of trade
unionists. "Europe must act together and take on responsibility.
Germany can't shoulder this task alone."
Striking a more skeptical tone on migration than in previous weeks,
Merkel also warned that Germany could not shelter those who were
moving for economic reasons rather than to flee war or persecution.
"We are a big country. We are a strong country. But to make out as
if we alone can solve all the social problems of the world would not
be realistic," she told a gathering of the Verdi trade union.
European Council President Donald Tusk, who chairs European Union
summits, said on Twitter on Sunday following a weekend visit to
Jordan and Egypt that the EU needed to help Syrian refugees find a
better life closer at home.
 That will be one of the topics of discussion for Wednesday's summit
in Brussels as hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants brave
the seas and trek across the impoverished Balkan peninsula to reach
more affluent countries in northern Europe.
The 28-member bloc has struggled to find a unified response to the
crisis, which has tested many of its newer members in the East that
are unaccustomed to large-scale immigration.
On Sunday Hungary erected a steel gate and fence posts at a border
crossing with Croatia, the EU's newest member state. Overwhelmed by
an influx of some 25,000 migrants this week, Croatia has been
sending them north by bus and train to Hungary, which has waved them
on to Austria.
Around 10,700 migrants walked into Austria from Hungary on Sunday,
some 200 more than on Saturday.
The influx of migrants, most of them fleeing war and poverty in the
Middle East, Africa and Asia, has led to bitter recriminations
between European governments while the temporary closure of national
borders has undermined one of the most tangible achievements of the
Union.
"If you don’t cope with this crisis, then I think the EU will fall
apart," said a senior EU official.
The official said European leaders would discuss longer-term
strategies for dealing with the crisis, particularly increasing
cooperation with Turkey and the countries bordering Syria to keep
the millions of refugees at home. Tusk said more aid to the World
Food Program and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
would also be on the agenda.
Beefing up the EU's asylum agency, Frontex, into a full border and
coastguard agency, and working on hotspots and a list of "safe
countries" whose citizens would not normally qualify for asylum,
would also be up for discussion, the official said.
CEMENTING PEACE
On Saturday, German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said the EU
needed to provide 1.5 billion euros ($1.70 billion) to the two
agencies to address funding shortfalls.
The EU prides itself on cementing peace among countries that until
World War Two fought bloody battles and fostering prosperity by
removing internal barriers among its member states through the
so-called Schengen agreement.
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But the more than 500,000 people crossing the Mediterranean into
Europe this year alone and Hungary's use of water cannon and razor
wire on its border with Serbia have seen the EU's ambitions to act
as one fall short.
The picture of a dead toddler washed up on a beach in Turkey sent
shockwaves around the continent. On Sunday 13 migrants, including
six children, were killed as their boat was wrecked in Turkish
waters.
"The (Schengen) agreements are now part of our daily lives and it is
unthinkable that the facilities enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of
travelers and cross-border workers in Europe are challenged by
nationalist and reactionary thoughts and political actions," said
Jean Asselborn, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs for
Luxembourg.
As the holder of the rotating presidency of the EU, Luxembourg is
working to broker a compromise that can break the deadlock between
member states on sharing the burden of the crisis.
EU interior ministers, meeting on Tuesday, are expected to agree on
a voluntary relocation scheme to redistribute 160,000 refugees from
frontline states across the EU, a fraction of the total entering
Europe.
French President Francois Hollande said he wanted the interior
ministers to address the most difficult aspects of the migration
crisis by Tuesday so that EU leaders could focus exclusively on
financing at Wednesday's summit.
"I really wish all these issues to be solved by the ministers'
reunion," Hollande said on Sunday during a state visit to Morocco.
EU ambassadors met on Sunday to try to hammer out compromises ahead
of Tuesday's meeting but several issues still needed to be solved
and work would continue until then, said a spokeswoman for the EU
presidency.
Germany's Gabriel warned that the country could be overwhelmed by
the 800,000 refugees and asylum seekers it expects to receive this
year. Most of the migrants hope to reach prosperous Germany or
Sweden.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday the United States
would take in 15,000 more refugees from around the world next year,
increasing the current level to 85,000, and to 100,000 in 2017.
(Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald, Paul Taylor, Francois
Murphy in Vienna; Lesley Wroughton in Berlin and John O'Donnell in
Frankfurt; Editing by Andrew Roche and Kavita Chandran)
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