Merkel made the call in a speech with Hollande to the European Parliament – the first such joint address since the fall of the Berlin Wall – in which they urged the increasingly divided EU to unite to tackle a wave of problems including migration and the war in Syria. “It will be a total war, a war that will also affect our territories and we must act”, he added, as quoted by Reuters. “Europe must affirm itself; otherwise we will see the end of Europe, our demise”, Hollande said, discussing the refugee crisis, according to France 24. “We believe this is a fundamental mistake”, Carter told a press conference in Rome, referring to the Islamic State group.
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Reacting to the Merkel and Hollande’s joint speech on Wednesday, Farage lampooned France as the “severely diminished” partner in the Franco-German relationship, suggesting the country was “trapped inside a currency from which she can not recover”.
In 1989, when Kohl and Mitterrand spoke in Strasbourg as Europe was in the grip of uncertainty about the crumbling of Soviet power in the east, the European Union had only 12 member states.
The French President appeared to lose his cool after Nigel Farage warned the EU had gone “rotten” in a fierce debate in the European Parliament.
“Merkel’s toughest battle”, ran a headline in Bild, Germany’s top-selling newspaper, which judged that “the refugee crisis is decisive for the political future of the chancellor”. She said that the regulation had “not proven itself to be viable” to deal with the realities of the crisis and it was now “obsolete in practice”.
On Tuesday, Ms Merkel announced that she was effectively taking personal control of the influx by setting up a refugee crisis unit in her Chancellery which would co-ordinate her government’s efforts to contain the situation.
Merkel, whose country has taken in most of the hundreds of thousands of refugees arriving this year, has stuck to a positive message despite strains on authorities’ ability to provide housing. “Now we are facing a humanitarian crisis and an influx of refugees caused by the destabilization of entire regions”. “Then we’d need to need a 3,000 kilometre fence and we’ve seen in Hungary what happens when you build a fence”.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel installed one of her most trusted allies on Wednesday to oversee her government’s handling of the refugee crisis as a new poll showed support for her conservative bloc slipping to a four-month low.
“We need to talk to Turkey about sharing the burden better”, she said.
Hollande said it will “probably” be 600,000 migrants and refugees who will arrive in Europe this year.
The first phase, which essentially entailed compiling and analysing information on the trafficker networks, has been up and running since June.
Francois Hollande has told Eurosceptics that if they do not like the European Union they should get out.
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Six ships are already in place in worldwide waters off the coast of Libya – the departure point for numerous migrant boats – including an Italian aircraft carrier, a French frigate and one British, one Spanish and two German ships. The resolution is not mandatory for the European Union to take action but would provide Operation Sophia with greater legitimacy. “This is an historic challenge which is also an opportunity”.
