BERLIN: Germany and France Monday urged the EU to find a fairer way to admit and distribute asylum seekers, as their leaders were to meet the European Commission chief in Berlin.
The Greek debt crisis and the threat of Britain leaving the EU were also sure to occupy minds as Chancellor Angela Merkel hosts President Francois Hollande and Jean-Claude Juncker for a dinner.
Officially the mini-summit starting around 1615 GMT brings the leaders of the eurozone’s two biggest economies together with around 20 heads of large European companies to discuss economic challenges.
But the meeting now comes hard on the heels of a joint call by Paris and Berlin for the 28-nation EU to revise its plan to admit asylum seekers landing on Europe’s shores.
Decrying an insufficient “balance,” the German and French interior ministers said in a joint statement Monday that “deep discussions” were needed to even out “responsibility” and “solidarity.”
Last week, the European Commission asked member states to admit 20,000 Syrian refugees from outside Europe and process another 40,000 asylum seekers from Syria and Eritrea landing in Italy and Greece.
Their distribution would depend on factors such as national economic output, population and unemployment rates.
France and Germany said in the joint statement that they currently were among five member states, along with Sweden, Italy and Hungary, that “are in charge of 75 percent of the asylum seekers.”
“This situation is not fair and no longer sustainable,” it said.
Merkel, Hollande and Juncker are due to deliver press statements in Berlin at 1640 GMT before a working dinner.
European sources have said that the get-together is aimed at working on plans for greater integration of the 19-member eurozone in the wake of the debt turmoil that still plagues cash-strapped Greece.
But Juncker told a German newspaper Monday that he would be “very surprised” if Greece’s woes were not at the heart of the Berlin discussions, reiterating his opposition to a so-called “Grexit.”
“I don’t share this idea that we’d have fewer concerns and constraints if Greece gave up the euro,” the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper quoted him as saying.
Berlin, Paris urge Brussels to rework EU asylum plan
Berlin, Paris urge Brussels to rework EU asylum plan
Sri Lanka hospital releases 22 rescued Iranian sailors
- Sri Lankan authorities said the survivors from the Dena were being handled according to international humanitarian law
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka discharged from hospital 22 Iranian sailors who were plucked from life rafts after their warship was sunk by a US submarine, officials said Sunday.
The sailors were treated at Karapitiya Hospital in the southern port city of Galle since Wednesday after the IRIS Dena was torpedoed just outside Sri Lanka’s territorial waters.
“Another 10 are still undergoing treatment,” a medical officer at the hospital told AFP.
He said the bodies of 84 Iranians retrieved from the Indian Ocean were also at the hospital.
Those discharged from hospital overnight had been taken to a beach resort in the same district.
Sri Lankan authorities said the survivors from the Dena were being handled according to international humanitarian law, and the government had contacted the International Committee of the Red Cross for assistance.
The island is also providing safe haven for another 219 Iranian sailors from a second ship, the IRIS Bushehr, that was allowed to berth a day after the Dena was sunk.
Sailors from the Bushehr have been moved to a Sri Lanka Navy camp at Welisara, just north of the capital Colombo, and their ship taken over by Sri Lanka’s navy.
Sri Lanka announced it was taking the Bushehr to the north-eastern port of Trincomalee, but an engine failure and other technical and administrative issues had delayed the movement, a navy spokesman said.
Sri Lanka has denied claims that it was under pressure from Washington not to allow the Iranians to return home, and said Colombo will be guided solely by international law and its own domestic legislation.
A US State Department spokesperson said the disposition of the Bushehr crew and Iranian sailors rescued at sea was up to Sri Lanka.
“The United States, of course, respects and recognizes Sri Lanka’s sovereignty in the handling of this situation,” the spokesperson told AFP in Washington.
India, meanwhile, said Saturday that it had allowed a third Iranian warship, the IRIS Lavan, to dock in one of its ports on “humane” grounds after it too reported engine problems.
The three ships were part of a multi-national fleet review held by India before the war in the Middle East started last week.
“I think it was the humane thing to do, and I think we were guided by that principle,” Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Saturday.
The Lavan docked in the south-west Indian port of Kochi on Wednesday.
“A lot of the people on board were young cadets. They have disembarked and are in a nearby facility,” Jaishankar said.
