German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday (October 12) that she would travel to an EU summit in Brussels later in the week and ask her fellow leaders to work together in tackling the migrant crisis.
Speaking at an event of her Christian Democrat Union part in the northern city of Stade, Merkel said that Germany cannot handle the problem alone.
“When on Thursday this week I travel to the European Council in Brussels, then I will tell my colleagues that we have here a European problem. And it is the case that we always try to solve European problems together. And just as we talked about solidarity and our own efforts in the euro crisis, we must also today say that the job of housing the refugees and taking them in cannot be the job of four countries of the 28 member states. We need European solidarity because we have European rules,” Merkel said, adding the importance of tackling the root of the problem.
“What we don’t accomplish outside Europe, that is a problem for us within Europe, and within Germany. And that is why I will travel to Turkey on Sunday,” Merkel said.
“We can see that we must work even harder on this than we have in the past so that we can fight the causes of migration and displacement because that is the guarantee or the way for us to steer of migration movements.”, she said.
Merkel’s conservatives and her Bavarian allies have agreed on a plan to set up “transit zones” at the border to filter out migrants who clearly have no chance of gaining asylum.
Bavarian State Premier Horst Seehofer, who heads the Christian Social Union (CSU), sister party to Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), said a concrete proposal would be drawn up by the two parties, the Bavarian government and the federal government, this week.
Speaking at a CDU event at the northern city of Stade, Merkel said the idea was to stop directly at the border those people who were coming from countries deemed as safe.
“We’re still in talks,” Merkel added, referring to strong reservations about the proposal among leading Social Democrats (SPD), the junior partner in her coalition.
But Merkel insisted: “It must be clear that Germany is helping those who have a prospect of staying. And those who haven’t, can’t get help in our country.”
Merkel’s government is aiming to speed up asylum and extradition procedures for migrants from southeastern Europe, in order to focus on war refugees from states such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The coalition therefore aims to widen the list of countries deemed safe, meaning their citizens have no claim to asylum, to include Kosovo, Albania and Montenegro. Among those already in that category are Serbia, Macedonia and Bosnia.
With its relatively liberal asylum laws and generous benefits, Germany has become a magnet for many of the hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
While Merkel has repeatedly said that Germany can cope with the unprecedented influx and will even benefit from it, communities around the country are struggling to house and support the refugees. Her party has slipped in opinion polls.
Bavaria, the point of entry for many of those reaching Germany, said on Friday it was at the limit of its capacity and Merkel praised the Bavarians for the efforts.
“With what everyone is doing at the moment, the Bavarians are really doing a lot. And we are very grateful for this.”
A draft bill circulated by the CDU-run Interior Ministry provides for transit zones to hold refugees at border crossings so asylum requests can be examined before they are allowed in.
The bill, which Reuters has seen, says this will allow those whose applications are inadmissible or clearly unfounded to be turned back directly at the border.
This would affect people without papers or with fake documents, migrants from countries deemed “safe”, or those who do not present sufficient reason to justify an asylum request.
However, if a decision could not be made within a week, or accommodation could not be provided at the border, the migrant would be allowed in anyway. (Reuters)