EU needs a unified European migration policy: Angela Merkel


09/01/2015



As the EU refugee crisis deepens, German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday called for greater EU co-operation on the issue and implicitly called for other countries to welcome more refugees.

Merkel stressed that EU countries needs a "unified European migration policy" and that refugees should be fairly divided among member states.

"If Europe fails on the question of refugees, then it won't be the Europe we wished for," she said.
These were said by the German Chancellor even as hundreds of migrants protested outside a major railway station in the Hungarian capital after police sealed off the terminal to stop them travelling through the EU.

Reports said that the crowds of migrants chanted "Germany, Germany" and waved train tickets after being forced to leave Keleti station in Budapest.

Many of the people had been waiting at Keleti station for days after they had travelled to Munich and boarded trains for Vienna on Monday even as the local police seemed to have given up attempts at trying to process them. The immigrants reportedly comprised mainly of Syrians, Afghans and Eritreans nationals.

On Monday 3,650 people, most of whom were aiming to travel on to Germany, had arrived by train in Vienna, Austrian authorities said.

The EU's Dublin Regulation for migrants and refugees states that the people who seek asylum in the EU have to get registered in the first EU member state in which they arrive. This rule has been reportedly flouted widely as the people reaching Hungary had entered the EU through Greece where they did not get themselves registered and which resulted in complicating the matter.

The German government has however already declared that the Dublin rule would be suspended for the Syrians who have travelled to Germany.

The Chancellor also said that the people without a right to stay in Europe should be sent back to their home countries.

It is expected that a total of 800,000 migrants this year would be taken in by Germany which is four times last year's number.

On the other hand, after Hungary abandoned efforts to register the refugees under EU rules, trains carrying hundreds of them arrived in the German city of Munich on Tuesday.

After travelling through Austria, around 1,400 immigrants reached in Munich by Tuesday and reports said that more such refugees were to come.

In an attempt to bring the crisis under control, the Hungarian police have now closed a main station in Budapest.

More than 107,500 migrants arrived in Europe in the month of July setting record of sorts.
Austria has tried to introduce extra checks on road vehicles crossing the border, even as there is a surge in the numbers of migrants flowing through Hungary.

Last week 71 people were found dead in a lorry that had travelled to Austria from Budapest highlighting the risks for migrants. It is believed that Syrians, trying to flee the country's civil war, comprised most of the dead migrants.

Apart from the incident of deaths of migrants in the truck, hundreds more people drowned in the Mediterranean last week in a ferry collapse last week  while they attempted to reach Europe from Libya.
On Monday there were nearly 20,000 people who rallied outside parliament in Vienna demanding better rights for migrants.
 
(Source:www.bbc.com)