Volunteers
form a convoy of cars to drive refugees from Budapest to the Austrian
border and beyond on Sunday night. One volunteer says Europe has a
tradition of human rights and says it is their duty to help the
refugees. Some drivers came from as far as Germany to help the wave of
people escaping conflict in Syria
Former UN diplomat and foreign minister in the last Labour
government, Mark Malloch-Brown, has added to calls for the UK to accept
more refugees. Speaking on the BBC Radio 4’s World at One,
he called for “generous asylum here in the UK - a little bit of Angela
Merkel’s magic dust needs to be sprinkled on our response.”
Scuffles broke out earlier on Monday between police and thousands of people attempting to enter Macedonia from with Greece.
About 2,000 people gathered at the Greek border near the village of
Idomeni just after dawn. The Macedonian authorities allowed only small
groups to cross every half hour, leading to tension. The situation later
calmed after more were allowed to cross, with about 1,000 having passed
the border by mid-day, AP reported.
Migrants and refugees try to break through a cordon of Macedonian police
forces to board a train after crossing the Macedonian-Greek border near
the Macedonian town of Gevgelija. Photograph: Robert
Atanasovski/AFP/Getty Images
Cardinal Vincent Nichols Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian
Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, has urged
Catholics in England and Wales to respond to the crisis with “practical
action” and promised the church will issue guidance on how people can
help.
In a statement he said:
“We urge government to respond positively to this crisis and to
provide the necessary resources and funding to ensure the effective
reception and long-term resettlement of these desperate people. We will
work with both government and other responsible authorities to meet this
grave challenge.
“We invite all Catholics to respond in prayer and in real, practical
action. It is my hope to join the prayer vigil which is taking place
outside Westminster Cathedral tomorrow night.
“Guidance will follow shortly on how the Catholic community in
England and Wales can practically respond to this refugee crisis.”
On the subject of candle lit vigils GuardianWitness have a callout on the #LightTheDark candlelit vigils being held across Australia. Here’s a sample of contributions so far.
The Guardian’s Europe editor, Ian Traynor, rounds up the latest diplomatic developments on the crisis:
French president François Hollande has called for a Paris summit of
European leaders to tackle the refugee crisis. He said Europe’s
passport-free Schengen zone could not survive without a new system of
binding quotas for sharing newcomers, and said France has agreed to take
24,000 people under a new EU scheme.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, right and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Photograph: Virginia Mayo/AP
Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, is to
outline a new three-pillar system for dealing with refugees on Wednesday
in a speech to the European parliament. He will propose the obligatory
sharing of 160,000 asylum-seekers moved from Italy, Greece, and Hungary across the rest of the EU, although the countries of eastern Europe are bitterly opposed to being forced to accept refugees.
The eastern Europeans will be offered the option of buying themselves
a year’s grace, delaying acceptance of their quota in return for
returning money to EU coffers. It is not clear whether they will accept.
Under the quotas, Germany, France, and Spain are to take around half of the total, although Madrid is also balking.
Britain and Denmark do not need to take part in the new scheme.
The Juncker proposals will also effectively put EU agencies in charge
of registering and fingerprinting newcomers in Italy and Greece, taking
on powers previously reserved for national governments. This is being
pushed by Germany, which is furious that for two years the Greeks and
Italians have been deliberately not registering people to avoid having
to take them back from other EU countries.
Juncker is also to table a list of agreed so-called safe countries of
origin, replacing the patchwork of different national lists with a
standardised number of countries accepted across the EU. This will be
politically divisive. It will apply mostly to the countries of former
Yugoslavia and Albania. Migrants from these countries currently make up
more than 40% of people going to Germany. The Germans have Serbia,
Bosnia, and Macedonia on their own safe list, but not Kosovo, Albania,
and Montenegro which will be on Juncker’s list.
Chancellor Angela Merkel
said that Germany needs a new system, separate from asylum procedures,
for dealing with migrants from the Balkans. Juncker is also expected to
include Turkey on his list, controversial since the 30-year-old conflict
between the Turkish state and Kurdish militants has re-erupted and is
escalating. And almost one quarter of asylum applications of people
arriving from Turkey in Europe are currently accepted.
The right to claim asylum is an individual, not collective nor
national right. People from countries on the safe list will still be
able to claim asylum, but the chances of them obtaining it will be
reduced while their applications will be fast-tracked, making
deportation a quicker prospect.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier Photograph: Julien Warnand/EPA
Germany’s foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has heaped more
pressure on David Cameron by calling on other EU states to take part in a
“massive joint effort” to tackle the refugee crisis. In a statement
issued on Monday he said:
“It is still an illusion to think that we can get a grip on that
crisis without a really comprehensive and differentiating approach. In
all our efforts, we must not forget the people who are currently
considering embarking on the extremely dangerous and risky journey to
Europe from refugee camps in Turkey, Lebanon or Jordan.
“We have to do even more in collaboration with our partners to create
fresh prospects for them in the places currently sheltering them. That
means, for example, supporting the UN efforts to stabilise Libya and the
endeavour to launch a real peace process in Syria, which may for the
first time in a long time have a chance of success now that agreement
has been reached in the nuclear dispute with Iran.”
Steinmeier echoed earlier remarks by the German chancellor Angela
Merkel. She said that other EU countries must take in more migrants
because “only with common European solidarity can we master this
effort”.
Shecalled for a “solidarity-based and fair distribution of refugees” and said the “Europe based on values must show its face”.
Refugees, mostly Syrian are prevented from moving further towards the
interior of Hungary and are kept surrounded by Hungarian police.
Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Observer
The Hungarian security forces are struggling to to contain migrants
trying to break out of the Röszke camp on the Serbia border, according
to reports.
A UN committee has urged Gulf States to do more to help tackle the crisis.
In a statement the UN Committee on the Protection on the Rights of
All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families said: “While
neighbouring states have opened their borders to millions of Syrian
migrants, other countries, especially in Europe and elsewhere, notably
the Gulf States, should do more to address one of the most tragic mass
displacements of people since World War II.”
The Guardian’s migration correspondent Patrick Kingsley said persuading the Gulf States to take more Syrians was one of the key ways to tackle the crisis. He wrote:
Most Arab countries don’t allow entry to Syrians. Some of them have
reasonable excuses – Lebanon’s refugee population is already a quarter
of the country’s total. But the Gulf countries – Saudi Arabia, the UAE,
Kuwait and Qatar – have less justification, not least because their
support for various sides in the Syrian war is one of the reasons the
conflict has lasted so long.
The Guardian has met some Syrians in the Balkans who led safe lives
in the UAE for years but had to leave because their residencies were
recently rescinded. If Europe has a moral duty to help Syrians, then the
Gulf certainly does too.”
We want to hear experiences from refugees who are making a journey in
Europe this summer, as well as their friends and families, and from
people whose communities are receiving refugees. You can share your
stories, pictures and videos with us via WhatsApp by adding the contact +44 (0) 7867 825056 and starting your message with refugees, or by contributing to GuardianWitness.
No comments:
Post a Comment