Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister Stefan Lofven of Sweden appealed on Tuesday for other EU countries to embrace their responsibilities in the immigration crisis by taking their fair share of the refugees flooding into Europe.
“We need binding quotas for refugees who have the right to asylum so they are fairly distributed according to strict principles among the member states,” Merkel said after meeting with Sweden’s Prime Minister, according to news.com.au.
“This is a challenge that will decide the future of Europe whether we are accepted as a continent of values and individual freedom,” Ms Merkel said. “In this question, where the whole world is looking to us, we can’t simply say Syria is too far away, we’re not going to deal with the problem.”
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is expected to unveil a Franco-German proposal for distributing refugees across the European Union states on Wednesday. So far, besides Germany and Sweden, the Dutch government is supportive of a quota system.
Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann was quick to warn countries who were recalcitrant in joining the effort that they would be facing a stiff fine. This comment was meant for Denmark, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, who oppose the quotas, and are not likely to change their minds, says the LA Times this morning.
One thing is for sure, the added public pressure, along with a growing popular pressure is putting added stress on an already volatile situation. The photo of the toddler lying dead in the surf off the coast of Turkey the other day galvanized the world’s attention on the crisis.
Spain, who originally agreed to take in 3,000 refugees, said today it would abide by the EU’s quota. This change of heart came a day after France and the UK agreed to increase their intake of refugees to 24,000 and 20,000, respectively, over the next few years. Greece, on the other hand, has taken in many refugees and is now asking for financial aid to help in processing migrants on the island of Lesbos.
The New York Times is reporting that Mr. Juncker’s proposal would have 160,000 immigrants distributed across the EU, a proposal that was met with fierce opposition in the past. Some of the countries in eastern and central Europe think asylum decisions are a matter of national sovereignty. Their fear is that taking in asylum-seekers would only create a larger migration into Europe.
The New York Times quotes Stefan Lofven as saying that neither his country nor Germany was “closing our eyes to this humanitarian catastrophe. Germany and Sweden have a lot in common. In the future, we will take on the responsibility to take in people who are fleeing war and oppression.”
At the same time that violence in Syria is escalating, the United Nations is also reporting that low levels of funding have caused the agency to cut food aid, as reported in Digital Journal two days ago. The cuts in food aid have fueled additional attempts to get into Europe.
The Danish have responded to the immigration crisis by using veiled warnings to migrants. Advertisements in Lebanon newspapers, including As Safir, An-Nahar, and The Daily Star on Monday told asylum seekers looking to come to Norway to look elsewhere. And as reported earlier in Digital Journal, Israel is building a fence along its border with Lebanon to keep out refugees.
