EU interior ministers hold urgent talks on refugee influx
The interior ministers of the European Union (EU) member states have held an emergency meeting on the persisting flow of refugees to Europe following measures by Germany to restore border checks to halt the continuing arrival of asylum seekers.
During the Monday meeting in Belgium’s capital, Brussels, the ministers will attempt to narrow their differences on how to distribute the responsibility for the steady arrival of thousands of refugees fleeing from foreign-backed conflicts in the Middle East, Asia and North Africa in a bid to ease the burden on the EU’s frontline nations.
The ministerial talks will also examine ways to distribute some 160,000 refugees over the next two years.
This is while the massive arrival of nearly 500,000 asylum seekers from war-torn nations so far this year has surprised the EU states, which have responded slowly to the developing crisis.
The ministers will also reportedly confirm the distribution of an initial 40,000 asylum seekers. However, the refugee allocation scheme was conceived back in May and a number of EU nations still do not plan to accept their full share before the end of the year.
In a decision reflecting the impact of the huge refugee influx on European countries, Germany temporarily reinstated controls at its border with Austria on Saturday and halted train traffic.
The decision was announced by German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière after authorities claimed that the record refugee arrivals, mostly from Syria, had stretched the system to a breaking point.
"The aim of this measure is to stop the current influx to Germany and to return to an orderly process," said the German minister on Sunday.
On Saturday, 13,015 refugees arrived at a train station in Munich from Austria. Another 1,400 came on Sunday morning, said the city’s mayor, Dieter Reiter.
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