BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande called Monday for a “unified” response to the worst refugee crisis to hit the EU since World War II.
“We must put in place a unified system for the right to asylum,” Hollande said in a brief statement ahead of talks, calling the influx from the world’s crisis zones “an exceptional situation that will last for some time.”
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.”
The German leader said she and Hollande were also in agreement that the EU must draw up a “unified” list of safe countries of origin to which asylum-seekers arriving in the bloc would be quickly returned.
Germany has been pushing for such a policy given the large portion of its asylum-seekers — 40 percent — coming from the Balkans.
Berlin argues that to help those from war zones such as Syria, Iraq and some regions of Africa, it needs to be able to filter out “economic migrants” more quickly.
Merkel reiterated that registration centers must be set up at the first ports of call in Greece and Italy to be administered and staffed by the EU as a whole by the end of the year.
“We cannot tolerate a delay,” she said.
Hollande underlined France’s “solidarity” with Germany in calling for a “fair distribution of asylum-seekers” within Europe as well as “the dignified return of people entering illegally.”
“There are moments in European history in which we face an exceptional situation — today, it is an exceptional situation but an exceptional situation that will last for some time.”
At least 2,000 more migrants entered Serbia overnight from Macedonia, which has declared a state of emergency over the massive numbers pressing into the country from the Greek border.
They are trying to reach Hungary, a member of the EU’s open-border Schengen agreement, which has already registered over 100,000 asylum seekers this year and plans to finish its anti-migrant fence on the Serbian border by the end of August.
Hours before the talks with French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned “vile” violent protests against refugees, as anti-migrant sentiment reared its head over the weekend in the eastern city of Heidenau.
“The chancellor and the entire government condemn the violent rampages and the aggressively xenophobic atmosphere in the strongest terms,” Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters after the clashes between police and far-right thugs protesting the opening of a new center for refugees.
“It is vile how right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis try to spread their hollow, hateful messages. Those who act like the aggressors of Heidenau place themselves far outside the law,” he said.
EU border agency Frontex said last week that a record 107,000 migrants were at the bloc’s borders last month, with 20,800 arriving in Greece last week alone.
With many seeking to cross into Macedonia from Greece, Skopje closed the border for three days and police used stun grenades and batons to stop hundreds of refugees trying to break through barbed wire fencing, before apparently deciding to let everyone enter.
Austria’s foreign minister Sebastian Kurz, who had traveled to the Macedonia-Greece border, called for an urgent new strategy to deal with the crisis.
“It’s a humanitarian disaster, a disaster for the European Union as a whole, and there is a pressing need for us to focus on the situation in the western Balkans,” said Kurz.
In Rome, Italian officials said the coast guard had rescued 4,400 migrants from 22 boats in the Mediterranean on Saturday alone in what was understood to be the highest daily figure in years.
“There has to be a new impetus so that what has been decided is implemented,” a source in the French presidency said, referring to EU decisions taken in June to tackle the crisis.
“The situation is not resolving itself,” the source said, adding that the decisions made by the EU “are not sufficient, not quick enough and not up to the task.”
With asylum-seekers coming not just from war zones such as Syria but also from countries without military conflict in southeastern Europe, including Albania, Serbia and Kosovo, calls are mounting for a more unified approach in dealing with the influx.
France and Germany are both urging Brussels to compile a list of countries whose nationals would not be considered asylum-seekers except in exceptional personal circumstances.
Merkel is also traveling Thursday to Vienna, where she will meet with leaders of Balkan states including Albania and Kosovo to find out why “so many thousands of people are coming from these countries,” according to Seibert.
France’s and Germany’s leaders will try to help fast-track the setting up of reception centers in overwhelmed Greece and Italy — two countries that have borne the brunt of the crisis — to help identify asylum-seekers and illegal migrants.
“As long as these reception centers are not there and there is no internal solidarity within the EU, the return of migrants — which will dissuade further new arrivals — will not happen,” the French source added.
Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni has warned that the deepening crisis could pose a major threat to the “soul” of Europe.
“On immigration, Europe is in danger of displaying the worst of itself: selfishness, haphazard decision-making and rows between member states,” Gentiloni told Il Messaggero.
Beyond the migrant crisis, Merkel and Hollande will later Monday tackle another issue pressing at the EU’s eastern flank — the Ukraine conflict.
The talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko come amid a resurgence of violence in the former Soviet state.
Hours ahead of the talks, Poroshenko accused Russia of sending three military convoys over the border into the separatist-controlled east.