The Malta Independent 3 May 2024, Friday
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Updated: EU president says summit talks 'brutal'; Hungary close to completing fence on Croatia

Associated Press Friday, 25 September 2015, 13:19 Last update: about 10 years ago

European Union President Donald Tusk says discussions at a recent summit were "very frank, sometimes brutal."

Tusk says "many countries had something unpleasant to say to the other countries," but didn't name any.

He added that a "thread of understanding" was emerging as the leaders abandon mutual recriminations and start to think together about how to help the refugees while "protecting Europe from an excessive wave."

Tusk spoke on Poland's state TVP Info Tuesday following the summit that decided to toughen border controls and provide funds for refugees in the Middle East as ways of coping with the migration crisis.

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Hungary announced Friday that it has nearly completed a fence being built on the border with Croatia, as the central European nation takes another step to slam the door on the flow of migrants seeking refuge in other parts of Europe.

Government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said on state radio that Hungary doesn't want to close the border, but wants "to protect the border of the European Union." He said the possibility of legal entry would be left open.

The prospect of another fence blocking the flow of migrants seeking refuge in northern Europe will insert more confusion into an already chaotic situation in the Balkans. Some 59,000 asylum-seekers have entered Croatia since Hungary shut its border with Serbia Sept. 15.

"There is no wall, no wire that can stop the people," Croatia's Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic said while visiting the Opatovac transit center in Croatia.

But closing the Hungarian border with Croatia will raise another obstacle, and at a minimum slow the traffic, and potentially strand more of the people transiting the Balkans while seeking sanctuary from conflict and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

There is some urgency in keeping people moving as the weather begins to turn colder. Rain soaked the border areas Friday, adding misery to a long journey.

Hungary has also installed spools of razor wire near a border crossing with Slovenia, which like Hungary is part of the EU's Schengen zone of passport-free travel.

Kovacs said they are meant to "block direct detours" by migrants who may attempt to circumvent the fences on the Serbian and Croatian borders to reach Germany and other countries in Western Europe.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban was in Vienna on Friday meeting with Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann and other officials to discuss the migration crisis.

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German officials say almost a third of asylum seekers arriving in the country who claim to be Syrian are not.

Hundreds of thousands of people have come to Germany since the start of the year seeking refuge from poverty, persecution and war.

Germany has said it will temporarily refrain from sending Syrians back to other European Union countries they have traveled through, as would normally be possible under EU rules.

This has been interpreted by some as Germany giving special preference to people from Syria, who make up the largest single group of asylum seekers.

Tobias Plate, a spokesman for Germany's interior ministry, said Friday that it's estimated that "30 percent of asylum seekers claiming to be Syrian in the end aren't Syrian."

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European Union President Donald Tusk says Europe might need a Border Guard to protect its outside borders from an "excessive wave" of migrants which could be a threat to its internal open borders system.

Tusk spoke on Polish state TVP Info late Thursday, hours after an EU summit decided to toughen border controls and offer more money to refugees in Middle East as ways of coping with the migration crisis in Europe.

Calling for a "very serious, quick talk" about whether a European Border Guard might be needed, Tusk said that without border control, "we have no migration policy but rather total chaos."

 


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