‘Common sense lost’ The Czech Republic also indicated its opposition to the proposal, with Czech interior minister Milan Chovanec tweeting: “We will soon realise that the emperor has no clothes”. With an average of 6,000 persons arriving every day on European shores, this requires a massive investment.
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Interior ministers from the European Union were gathering in Brussels on Tuesday to try to break a deadlock on sharing out asylum-seekers that has plunged the 28 member states into a fury of mutual recriminations.
His Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vucic, said Tuesday that Croatia’s closing of the main border crossing is “a scandal of global proportions”, and gave the European Commission a deadline to reopen the traffic.
Under the EU’s rules, a country that does not agree with a policy on migration imposed upon it could have the right to appeal to the European Council.
Migrants queue at the border crossing between Serbia and Croatia near Tovarnik, Croatia, on Monday. It is a prospect some in Europe fear.
“Maybe something will change”, said Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta, who hoped that his country won’t be obliged to take in more than the 1,785 refugees it has offered to absorb. Salafists are ultraconservative Muslims.
The question is whether Europe’s politicians – who have failed to deliver on far less complicated issues over which they had a lot more control – can seize the moment. Eastern states with no tradition of integrating large numbers of Muslims are anxious about the impact on their societies and keen to avoid any signal that might encourage even more desperate people to set sail across the Mediterranean for Europe.
The UNHCR said in a statement that 477,906 people have arrived in Europe by sea this year. Marban says that makes a night in the open “nearly impossible”.
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maziere, whose country is set to take in around one million asylum seekers this year, previously said he was “optimistic” that they could reach a deal but warned that the talks would be hard .
Last week’s meeting did endorse plans to relocate a separate 40,000 refugees which the Commission unveiled in May as the crisis deepened.
Germany may receive 1mn people seeking refugee status this year, up from the record 800,000 arrivals predicted so far, said Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel a week ago.
Wesam Mohammed Al Abu, a 30-year-old Syrian migrant from Aleppo, said the migrants are waiting for the results of an European Union summit – due to take place Wednesday in Brussels- which he hoped would allow him to cross over.
Hungary has given its army drastic new powers to protect its borders, as the United Nations chief said he was “extremely concerned” about the treatment of migrants and refugees in overstretched Europe.
European Union leaders may be in disarray over what to do next but in the meantime – for now – chaos on the ground has given way to an orderly means of transporting migrants from country to country.
The trouble started early on September 22 at a new transit camp in the eastern village of Opatovac, where migrants streamed to the gates in great numbers, overwhelming authorities.
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Around 10,700 migrants walked into Austria from Hungary on Sunday, some 200 more than on Saturday, highlighting the depths of the ongoing migrant problem.
