EU must help Greece over refugees and 'reinstate Schengen', says Merkel

[webfact]

EU must help Greece over refugees and 'reinstate Schengen', says Merkel
By Alasdair Sandford | With REUTERS



"We want to end the policy of waving through. Asylum seekers also have no right to choose the country in Europe where they ask for asylum"

BERLIN: -- Angela Merkel has called for a return to Europe’s Schengen system of open borders as soon as possible.

The German chancellor said the pictures of desperate migrants trying to reach western Europe via the Balkans showed the urgency of next Monday’s EU summit.

It comes as one by one, countries have been closing their borders or restricting access to refugees – with the domino effect putting enormous pressure on Greece to the south.

“I made clear again that Germany supports what we agreed on at the last EU summit on February 18, that we want to reinstate Schengen,” said Merkel, after meeting the Croatian Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic in Berlin.

But conscious of the numbers Germany has taken in, she added: “We want to end the policy of waving through. Asylum seekers also have no right to choose the country in Europe where they ask for asylum.”

Under EU law, the member state responsible for examining an asylum seeker’s claim is usually supposed to be the state through which the person first entered the bloc. However under the influx of migrants the system is widely accepted to have failed.

Austria – which has limited the number of migrants it lets through to 3,200 a day, and the number of asylum applications it accepts to 80 – has stuck to its position.

Croatia, also on the migrants’ route northwards, has said it might deploy its armed forces to help police control flows.

Border restrictions imposed by the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) – not an EU member – have also added to the pressure on Greece, which risks being inundated.

The number of refugees arriving on its shores has increased more than twenty-fold in a year – from 5,000 in the first two months of 2015 to an estimated 120,000 since January 1st this year.

Many refugees have since moved on to other countries, but the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) called for better planning and accommodation for at least 24,000 it said were stuck in Greece, including 8,500 at Idomeni on the Macedonian border.

“Europe is on the cusp of a largely self-induced humanitarian crisis,” the UN refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards said.

Another senior UN official also issued a stark warning.

“Either we have massive orderly relocation, either we will have a repeat of what we have seen last year with fragmentation of the routes in the Western Balkan possibly going to Bulgaria directly from Greece to Italy or going to Albania. We would like to see that orderly and that’s why we think we should not shut down the relocation scheme just because the results are not yet there. Countries have to wake up, there is no other plan,” said Vincent Cochetel, UNHCR Coordinator for the Refugee Crisis in Europe.

Despite the talk of the need for a Europe-wide solution, countries are accused of failing to act on their words.

The UN’s Special Representative for Migration, Peter Sutherland, has said as things stand, Greece risks becoming a vast concentration camp for refugees.

Angela Merkel said this week in a TV interview that the EU did not fight to keep Greece in the eurozone last year, just for it to be “plunged into chaos” now.


-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2016-03-02

[shirtless]

Merkel needs to understand she does not speak for the whole EU she does not even speak for the vast majority of Germans, You alone made this crisis, so stop trying to spread the pain .

[Steely Dan]

Schengen was totally dependent on effective policing of its external borders, in this respect it has failed abjectly. Even if effective policing was achieved there would have to be a mechanism for separating genuine refugees from migrants at the border, otherwise once they are in Countries play pass the parcel with one another. To add to the problems hundreds of thousands of migrants have gone missing within the Schengen area. Refugees are unlikely to go missing, so economic migrants and even terrorists are on the loose, probably thousands of terrorists.

[boomerangutang]

Merkel is trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube. With her bleeding heart sentiments, she is single-handedly transforming Germany. She's enabling Muslims to reside in central Europe in large numbers, something the Austrians didn't allow hundreds of years ago when Turkish armies twice attacked Vienna, and both times were turned back.

Germany and its neighbors can now brace themselves for Sharia Law and increased lawlessness manifesting as rapes and terrorist attacks.

[sweatalot]

Merkel should be sacked, jailed and accused for treason against her country and her people

How can the migrant problem be solved?

may be only by the army

[Lukecan]

THe real cause of the refugee problem is Kurdish seperatists in Turkey. The Turkish forces are overwhelmed, they are fighting a far in the east of Turkey and can't control the borders of the country in the west. The country is in the brink of destabilization, once that happens millions of refugees will go to Europe.

The west has been aiding the Kurdish rebels in Turkey for over 20 years, they are about to reap the fruits of their stupidity.

[godden]

Lock her up and bin the key

[Familyaffairs]

No Merkel ! You invited them in, so ykeep them. No more Schengen ! You gambled and lost doesn't mean all countries in Europe have to put up with these people and your antics.You had us colonized before during WW2, caused deportations, lots of deaths, misery and sorrow, and now you starr again ? enough already !

[wabothai]

He you politicians, if you cannot come to a solution have the people of Europe speak in a referendum.

[SgtRock]

EU must help Greece over refugees and 'reinstate Schengen', says Merkel

Should have thought of that before prostrating yourself to Turkey.

It was obvious to a blind man where the help was required, either by design or catastrophic failure, you are responsible.

[chilli42]

" .... Countries have to wake up, there is no other plan, said Vincent Cochetel, UNHCR Coordinator for the Refugee Crisis in Europe." That is the problem. They have a plan and that plan has been a complete failure. They have no plan that any thinking person can align around. The leadership of EU are criminally negligent in their duty. They have to deal with the refugees that are already in Europe and for this they have no plan - a plan would be something member countries agree to. More importantly, there is no plan for stopping the refugee flood before it gets to EU - it's not even bein discussed.

[chilli42]

THe real cause of the refugee problem is Kurdish seperatists in Turkey. The Turkish forces are overwhelmed, they are fighting a far in the east of Turkey and can't control the borders of the country in the west. The country is in the brink of destabilization, once that happens millions of refugees will go to Europe.

The west has been aiding the Kurdish rebels in Turkey for over 20 years, they are about to reap the fruits of their stupidity.

Not suggesting that the Kurds are easy to deal with but Turkiye has a standing army of over 500,000. It's an army that is far from incompetent.

[mopar71]

I feel sorry for the true refugees. The families fleeing war.

But the well of good will has been poisoned by the overwhelming majority who are not refugees, but healthy, young, male economic migrants (including an unknown number of terrorists) mixing among them. If saving the refugees means letting hundred of thousands of undocumented men swarm the borders and disappear into the countryside, then I think the refugees are out of luck.

[bridge2bridge]

The quicker this IDIOT(Merkel) is voted out of office the better Europe will be.

[surfinglife]

Merkel is trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube. With her bleeding heart sentiments, she is single-handedly transforming Germany. She's enabling Muslims to reside in central Europe in large numbers, something the Austrians didn't allow hundreds of years ago when Turkish armies twice attacked Vienna, and both times were turned back.

Germany and its neighbors can now brace themselves for Sharia Law and increased lawlessness manifesting as rapes and terrorist attacks.

The Austrians didn't have much to do with defeating the Turkish invaders. It was the Polish army under king Jan III Sobieski who came to the rescue. And the Poles are doing it again by, together with Czechs and Hungarians, flatly refusing to be invaded, whilst the Germans and the French do what they have always been good at: wave the white flag.

[Ulic]

Merkel is now talking out of both sides of her mouth. If she want the boarders open and

Schengen free travel, Germany also has to open her boarders to the migrants. After all

they are coming because of her open arms, welcome all, and we will manage. Fast track

them all to Germany.

[ukrules]

This woman needs to learn how to keep her mouth shut.

[boomerangutang]

Someone mentioned Turkey. Currently, Turkey appears to be somewhat stable and well-governed, considering its on-going Kurdish problems and the flood of refugees from Syria. However, before the shit hit the fan in Syria, diplomats would have told you things were moderately stable in Syria, with its non-democratic handing of power from father to son. How wrong the diplomats and world intelligence services were. Syria imploded faster than the Hindenberg blimp.

Is Turkey the next to implode? I hope not, but stranger things have happened in the past several years. Turkey has underlying problems (as most countries do), but hopefully none will snowball into mass problems as has happened in Syria. Similar vulnerabilities exist for Lebanon and Jordan. It's common for one country's problems to reverberate into neighboring countries. One recent example: The Arab Spring which started in Tunisia, quickly spread through most of the Middle East. Even on another level, re; pathogens, such transferances are not uncommon. Example: several weeks after the Zika virus was found to be very problematic in Brazil, it cropped up in Colombia and several Caribbean islands.

If Turkey become Syria-like, the migration headaches of Europe will become ten times greater.