More than 680,000 migrants and refugees have crossed to Europe by sea thus far this yr, fleeing warfare and poverty within the Middle East, Africa and Asia, in response to the worldwide Organization for Migration.
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While German Chancellor Angela Merkel is urging European Union countries to open their doors and their hearts to refugees, other leaders see the top priorities as controlling the EU’s external borders to stem arrivals, deporting more people denied asylum and paying third countries to keep refugees on their soil.
European leaders are meeting later with the Balkan countries to discuss the escalating refugee crisis.
Mr Juncker will also present a 16-point action plan, including faster deportations of economic migrants and a call for European Union states not to send migrants from one country to another without prior agreement, according to German news reports.
It comes at a time when many working class voters have switched their support to the far right out of anger over unemployment, falling living standards and immigration.
Peter Altmaier, the minister coordinating the government’s asylum policy, told ARD television that the move was “a signal” to would-be asylum seekers.
Speaking at the Congress of the European People’s Party (EPP) in Madrid, the former Polish prime minister said that “we can no longer allow solidarity to be equivalent to naivety, openness to be equivalent to helplessness, freedom to be equivalent to chaos”. “We have invested a huge amount in them, and now they are doing too little”.
Merkel has previously expressed her frustration with other European countries that have resisted pressure to take in refugees, amid the worst crisis the continent has seen since the end of the Second World War.
Mrs Merkel is also pushing a multi-billion Euro aid deal with Turkey to accommodate more refugees in exchange for visa-free travel for Turkish students and businessmen and the re-opening of negotiations over possible Turkish membership of the EU. But the decision had to be pushed to a majority vote overruling the dissenters, mainly in eastern Europe, with the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, accusing Merkel of “moral imperialism” by forcing the issue.
Merkel’s open-door policy faces a backlash as Germany braces for up to a million asylum requests this year, but Juncker said that “I appreciate very much that the Chancellor does not change course because of opinion polls”.
“This isn’t about short-term popularity but about substance”, he told German media group Funke.
“For a few of those who come to us, things will go really well”.
“These are disposable, for example”, she said, holding up one of her dental tools.
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She was among about 2,000 migrants and refugees waiting in a muddy field waiting to cross to a nearby camp. Many lit fires and wrapped themselves in blankets as early morning temperatures sank close to zero.
