With central European states and political parties in many EU countries demanding tougher action against “economic migrants” arriving in Europe from some of the world’s poorest states, the news that many asylum seekers are pretending to be Syrian is likely to further inflame debate on the issue.
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US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed the European response to the Syrian refugee crisis in a phone call on Tuesday, the White House said.
Mogherini announced a few weeks ago she had met with the new foreign minister of Turkey, and were in contact nearly on a daily basis.
“We still don’t know exactly how the scheme will operate and councils up and down the country are pressing the government – through the Local Government Association in a cross party consensus- for clarity around a number of issues that need to be urgently resolved”.
Earlier, Prime Minister David Cameron pledged £100m for Syrian refugee camps – £40m of which will go towards supporting and feeding refugees in shelters neighbouring Syria.
The United Kingdom has already provided £1bn in aid to Syria and Mr Cameron said the extra cash would help the thousands of people displaced by the conflict but “also to stop people wanting to make or thinking of making this very, very hard and very unsafe journey to Europe“.
Slovakia, Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic voted against the relocation scheme, while Finland abstained, and its approval following a vote rather than the agreement of all countries has proved controversial.
Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday that the Obama administration will increase the number of worldwide refugees the United States accepts each year to 100,000 by 2017, which is a considerable increase over the current annual cap of 70,000.
Britain has agreed to take in 20,000 of the most vulnerable Syrian refugees over the next five years but will take them direct from the refugee camps bordering the war-ravaged country.
Britain and Ireland – which are not part of Europe’s passport-free Schengen borderless area – were not required to take part.
In a statement, the European Commission acknowledged the need to tackle the “route causes” of the crisis.
“We thought this would be a good opportunity to have some further discussions on European Union reform”, she said.
Green Party leader Natalie Bennett, also at the event, said Cameron had “bowed to pressure” from the British public to take in refugees, but that the figure was still too low. “We decided today that if they don’t keep to that, they can be returned without delay to the land they were distributed to, and the countries are committing themselves to taking the people back”.
David Cameron said that Britain will not participate in the EU’s emergency plan to relocate refugees across the continent.
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A boy reacts as a large group of migrants arrives in Hegyeshalom, Hungary, on September 23, 2015. Turkey also wants to control the Kurdish border in Syria.
