Growing Migrant Crisis Prompts Call for Urgent Meeting of E.U. Officials
|
Version 0 of 1. LONDON — With increasing public consternation about the flow of migrants and asylum seekers to Europe and the dangers of their passage, Germany, France and Britain made a joint call on Sunday for an urgent meeting of European Union interior and justice ministers to find “concrete” measures to cope with the escalating crisis. In a quick response, Luxembourg — which holds the revolving presidency of the European Union — called such a meeting for Sept. 14 in Brussels. What is most urgent, the interior ministers of the three countries said, is agreement on the establishment of welcome centers in Greece and Italy to house, feed and screen migrants and asylum seekers, and to decide who should be allowed to remain as a legal refugee and who should be sent back home. Similarly, the ministers said, the European Union must agree on a list of “safe countries of origin,” from which people would be considered migrants, not refugees, and therefore allowed to be sent home. The ministers’ appeal included the prospect of an emergency summit meeting of bloc leaders to follow. The interior ministers — Thomas de Maizière of Germany, Theresa May of Britain and Bernard Cazeneuve of France — had come together to address how to improve security on Europe’s trains, especially in the open-border Schengen zone, after a young Moroccan gunman tried to attack a train from Amsterdam to Paris on Aug. 21 before being foiled by passengers. The gruesome discoveries last week of 71 migrants’ bodies in a truck on an Austrian highway and of more than 100 people who drowned off Libya have intensified pressure on the European Union to come up with a safer common system for the surge of migrants from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Syria, Iraq, Sudan and other countries in crisis. “There is a need to take measures immediately to face up to the challenge from these migrant flows,” the three ministers said in a statement. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has spoken out for a compassionate reception of migrants after weeks of silence on the issue. She was pressed in part by proposals from important members of the Social Democrats, who are junior members of a grand coalition with her Christian Democrats. The Social Democrat foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and his party’s leader, Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, wrote an article that appeared on Aug. 23 in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung — which generally favors the Christian Democrats — and laid out a 10-point program, including a common European code of asylum. A senior German official, who requested anonymity to address a diplomatic issue, noted that the article had not been written with the interior minister, Mr. de Maizière, a Christian Democrat, in a clear effort to distinguish the Social Democrats in the minds of voters. Ms. Merkel, who tends to weigh facts and public opinion carefully before declaring a position, clearly heard the message. She was also prompted to act by growing criticism from the far right of Germany’s acceptance of migration. Ms. Merkel was booed last week and called a “traitor” when she visited a shelter for asylum seekers in Heidenau, the site of violent anti-immigrant protests by neo-Nazis. Germany has said it expects up to 800,000 asylum seekers this year, prompting anxiety and political criticism, even though only 310,000 migrants and asylum seekers have reached Europe so far this year, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. There should be “no tolerance for those people who question the dignity of others, no tolerance for those who are not willing to help where legal and human help is required,” Ms. Merkel said, condemning violent protests as “shameful” and “vile.” The German government said last week that Syrians would be allowed to apply for asylum in Germany, even if they entered the European Union through another country. Under the Dublin Regulation, asylum seekers are required to apply for protection in the first European Union country they reach. The failure of the Dublin rules became part of this summer’s turmoil as enormous pressure mounted on Greece and Italy — nearly all 310,000 migrants this year have entered in those countries. Overwhelmed Greece and Italy — and now Hungary and other Balkan countries — are moving migrants through their countries to richer and more welcoming nations like Germany, Sweden and France. On Sunday, the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, sharply criticized Hungary and other countries that have simply forwarded migrants instead of helping them. “With regard to all those people who are politically chased out of their country, we have to be able to welcome them,” Mr. Fabius told Europe 1 radio. “Every country has to respond to that. France, Germany, others have, but when I see certain countries that do not accept these groups, I find that scandalous.” He criticized “in particular eastern European states — they are extremely harsh.” He criticized Hungary especially for trying to put up a wall against migrants, saying that the country “is part of Europe, which has values, and we do not respect those values by putting up fences.” Ms. May, the British home secretary, offered sharp criticism of her own on Sunday, calling Europe’s migration system broken. She blamed the unrestricted travel in the Schengen area, of which Britain is not a member, for worsening the migrant crisis and promoting human smuggling, and in a regular British complaint, she demanded tighter rules on the freedom of movement of even European Union citizens within the bloc. “The events of this summer have shown that the most tragic consequences of a broken European migration system have been borne by those at risk of exploitation,” Ms. May wrote in The Sunday Times of London. “As countries in Europe are increasingly realizing, these tragedies have been exacerbated by the European system of no borders.” Rising net migration to Britain is a difficult political problem for the Conservative government of Ms. May and Prime Minister David Cameron, who promised five years ago to reduce the annual increase to “tens of thousands.” Last year annual net migration to Britain hit a record high of 330,000, according to figures released last week. That is double the figure from 2010, and as much as half of the number came from European Union citizens moving to Britain for jobs in its decently growing economy. Mr. Cameron wants to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s European Union membership before a national referendum on the membership due to be held by the end of 2017, and he is searching for ways to discourage more European Union immigration here, including restrictions on social and tax benefits for up to four years. “When it was first enshrined, free movement meant the freedom to move to a job, not the freedom to cross borders to look for work or claim benefits,” Ms. May said. “We must take some big decisions, face down powerful interests and reinstate the original principle.” She suggested admitting only European Union citizens who already had a job offer in Britain, terms that the other countries are unlikely to accept. The British government is clearly anxious that the chaos over migration, legal and illegal, will make it harder to persuade British voters to remain inside the European Union, even with some negotiated changes. |