German Chancellor Angela Merkel
on Monday urged the European Union to help Italy on its migrant
crisis just as the EU called for common rules rather than walls
to address the emergency that has come into sharp focus with a
string of deadly incidents.
The UN said the vast majority of people trying to cross the
Mediterranean were refugees, mostly from Syria, Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Speaking in Berlin, Merkel said an agreement had been
reached on the need to help Italy on this front.
"There is great agreement - said Merkel - "on the fact
that Italy must be helped" in the refugee crisis.
It is not possible, the chancellor added, that so many
migrants who reach Italy remain there.
The chancellor continued saying that Europe must "move as a
whole": "EU countries need to share responsibility on the
preservation of asylum rights".
"We need to have a fair quota system", she said.
"The world - Merkel said - sees Germany as a country of
hope and possibilities, it hasn't always been like that".
And talking about managing the influx of refugees
experienced by the country and Europe, Merkel called for
"flexibility" for Germany, recalling that the country
demonstrated it on several occasions, citing as examples "banks'
bailouts and exiting nuclear power".
"Courage is necessary", she added stressing there
is zero tolerance for those failing to respect the dignity of
asylum seekers.
"No tolerance for those questioning the dignity of human
beings", she concluded, referring in part to a series of
protests by rightist extremists that have shocked Germany
recently.
A spokesman for the European Commission said Monday that
barriers like Hungary's anti-migrant fence "don't send the right
signal" and the EC "doesn't encourage the use of fences but of
other measures" to guard frontiers.
But the matter is one of national competence and therefore
Budapest will not incur any "legal consequences".
The first Vice President of the European Commission Frans
Timmermans said Monday that "it is necessary to quickly reach
common European rules on asylum applications, knowing that
solidarity and responsibility are indissoluble principles".
Timmermans made the statement ahead of an emergency summit
to be held on September 14.
French Premier Manuel Valls also spoke about the
immigration emergency from Calais, where he was visiting with
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, tTimmermans and European
Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos.
"We are here, Europe is here, Europe is mobilizing," said
Valls.
"We are facing an exceptional migration phenomenon:
cooperation of all of Europe is necessary. The European Union
can't abandon Italy and Greece. A joint solution is necessary",
continued Valls.
"It is necessary for Europe to act in the respect of its
principles: humanity, solidarity, firmness".
Europe has started to press for more forceful joint action
after a string of recent incidents including two boat wrecks off
Libya in which upwards of 300 people may have died, and the
discovery of 71 corpses in a lorry on an Austrian highway.
But Britain on Sunday took a step in the other direction as
Home Secretary Teresa May saying the UK would only allow
immigrants with jobs into the UK after immigration surged to
record proportions.
The EC responded to May's announced clampdown on Monday by
saying "free circulation of European citizens is an integral
part of the single market and a central feature of its success".
The EC stressed, in a contention that Britain would
disagree with, that the single market already doesn't allow
benefit tourism of the kind the UK is bidding to stamp out.
Free movement "is not an unconditional right", an EC
spokesman said.
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