This scenario has increased concerns that terrorists affiliated with the Islamic State can, with ease, infiltrate European borders by posing as refugees.
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In the wake of the attacks, Poland’s new Europe minister, Konrad Szymanski said Saturday that his government did not agree with Poland’s earlier commitment to accept its share of an EU-wide relocation of refugees, and now, “in the face of the tragic acts in Paris, we do not see the political possibilities to implement [this]”.
“The attacks mean the necessity of an even deeper revision of the European policy towards the migrant crisis”, he said at a Saturday briefing.
Robert Fico, the prime minister of Slovakia, echoed Szymanski’s remarks.
Hungary’s strongly anti-immigration prime minister says the European Union is “weak, uncertain and paralyzed” in light of the migrant crisis.
In August, after Germany announced it would accept refugees even if they had not been registered elsewhere in the European Union, leaders from the continent’s far-right argued that relaxing border policies for refugees could allow militants disguised as asylum-seekers to infiltrate European nations and carry out terrorist attacks.
“We do not know if the passport was checked by other countries through which the holder likely passed”.
“I would invite those in Europe who try to change the migration agenda we adopted”. But the Paris attacks that killed more than 125 people were being presented by right-wing groups as proof that her open-door policy exposes Germany to anger over Western airstrikes aimed at wiping out Islamic State.
Russian military action in Syria is increasing the number of refugees trying to reach Europe, European Council President Donald Tusk has said.
The attackers in Paris and Middle East refugees should not be mixed up, warned EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker on Sunday (15 November).
He denied that the breach of Europe’s borders by these two terrorists demonstrated that the Schengen open border agreement was fatally flawed, saying: “The decision of the French President for a while reintroducing border controls is expressly provided for in the Schengen Agreement, in order to respond to the location of such events”. “We can not allow any illegal and uncontrolled immigration”. “This would mean the dismantling of the European Union”. European officials say there is a brisk trade in fake Syrian passports to help people get refugee status in the EU. Slovenia began building its own barrier with Croatia last week.
“Those who organised, who perpetrated the attacks are the very same people who the refugees are fleeing and not the opposite”.
“Can you imagine a situation in which we send our troops to fight for Syria, while hundreds of thousands of Syrians sip coffee on Unter den Linden” – a boulevard in Berlin – “or at the old town square and watch how we fight for their security?”
A few U.S. Republican presidential candidates said Syrian refugees must be heavily screened before they are resettled on American soil.
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“I understand this fear, and we can not completely rule out” the presence of jihadists among the migrants, but “we are dealing with terrorism that took place both before and after the wave of migration”, Koenders said.
