Merkel, Hollande urge ‘unified’ response to EU refugee crisis

After being processed in Greece, the migrants usually make their way across the border to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

The leaders of Germany and France will meet in Berlin on Monday to seek a unified stance on European efforts to tackle the biggest migrant crisis since World War II, as hundreds more people poured into Serbia in a desperate journey for a better life.

“The immigrants who arrive in Germany this year alone will cost the government 10 billion euros”, Spain’s El Mundo wrote, adding that Chancellor Angela Merkel was looking for ways to either curtail or reroute the migrant flows to the Balkans.

Ms Merkel, whose country expects a record 800,000 asylum applications this year, said Germany and France also wanted all EU members to conform with existing refugee policies governing the bloc “as quickly as possible”.

“This is an emergency situation for Europe that requires all EU member states to step in to support the national authorities who are taking on a massive number of migrants at its borders”, Frontex’s executive director, Fabrice Leggeri, said in a statement last week.

An AFP photographer witnessed them finally arrive in Hungary from Serbia via a cross-border railway track, close to the southern Hungarian village of Roszke.

Hungary, another EU country with external borders, is rushing to build a vast razor-wire barrier to keep out migrants, fearing that it would be overwhelmed by asylum requests.

“Almost 83,000 refugees arrived in Germany last month, and the government estimates that by the end of the year, 800,000 people will have come seeking asylum”. The refugees, some fleeing wars in Afghanistan and Syria, told Reuters they had feared the mob would enter the shelter and attack them.

According to Dusan Reljic at the German Institute for worldwide and Security Affairs (SWP), this is because the economic situation there is “disastrous”, with growth non-existent, unemployment sky high and investment feeble.

Merkel said Germany would stand up for people’s right to apply for asylum, irrespective of whether their requests eventually succeed.

Sigmar Gabriel, vice chancellor and economy minister, traveled to the town of 16,000 on Monday, meeting with the mayor and speaking with local residents. “We can’t accept any delays”.

Germany scrambled Tuesday to quell a wave of anti-migrant violence, as a suspected arson attack hit a planned refugee shelter just hours after Chancellor Angela Merkel denounced xenophobic protests as “vile”.

The fire in Unterweissach left the asylum home completely destroyed, but no one was injured. News reports say 30 police were injured in the riot, although there is no mention of any civilians being hurt, which is odd. The move to cancel the Dublin transfer point of entry means Syrian asylum seekers will be immediately processed in its regular asylum procedure.