Viktor
Orbán: Arm Libya to fight ISIL and migration
There’s
a need for ‘defensive lines’ to protect EU’s external borders,
Hungarian leader said at summit on refugees.
By
Matthew Karnitschnig
9/24/16, 9:13 PM CET
VIENNA — Viktor
Orbán on Saturday called on Europe to drop its arms embargo against
Libya and empower a new government in Tripoli to fight both illegal
migration and ISIL, the Hungarian prime minister’s latest
controversial proposal to bring the refugee crisis under control.
Speaking after a
summit on refugees in the Austrian capital, Orbán also repeated his
call for the European Union to erect a “giant refugee city” in
Libya, where asylum claims could be processed. Libya is one of the
main gateways for refugees heading across the Mediterranean to
Europe.
The Hungarian
leader, the most outspoken critic of Europe’s refugee policies,
appears to have won little immediate support for his suggestion. The
provocative proposals seemed aimed at his detractors, including
Germany’s Angela Merkel, who argue that Hungary’s hardline
approach to the crisis will do little to solve it.
“These are not
nice things, but these are necessary things,” Orbán said of the
tight border controls and other measures Budapest has undertaken to
keep migrants at bay.
“We
see a completely different future for mankind” — Viktor Orbán
Leaders described
Saturday’s discussion on new ways to tackle the crisis as both
frank and to the point. In a role reversal, Merkel, who has often
clashed with Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on economic
issues, locked arms with him in urging a more progressive refugee
policy.
Yet Austria and its
Balkan allies were resolute in defending their tough measures.
“The usual Euro
blah blah was out of the discussion,” Orbán said. “It was very
Central European.”
European Council
President Donald Tusk also joined the fray, saying on his way into
the meeting that it was essential the Balkan route remain “closed
for good.”
Orbàn cast the
debate in stark terms, describing a fundamental philosophical divide
in the EU between leaders who believe borders can be protected and
those who think unfettered mobility is inevitable, even desirable.
“We see a
completely different future for mankind,” he said.
Orbán’s comments
underscored the continued tensions within Europe over how to combat
the crisis. Though the situation has calmed over the past year —
due both to the closure of the so-called Balkan route from Greece to
Austria and the EU’s refugee pact with Turkey — leaders warned
that it could explode again if Europe doesn’t take further steps.
“If we fail on
this issue, if there’s no progress or if the Turkey deal collapses,
then the European project of integration will face a massive test,”
said Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern, the summit’s host.
Kern, defending the
cap Vienna has placed on new arrivals, noted that if the rest of the
EU adopted the same ceiling as Austria, more than two million people
could take refuge in Europe.
While the leaders at
Saturday’s summit agreed the Balkan route should remain closed,
they warned that a collapse of the EU’s refugee deal with Turkey
remained the biggest threat and called for contingency plans if that
happens.
Turkey has generally
honored its commitments under the deal, but ongoing political turmoil
in the country as well as differences between Ankara and the EU
threaten to undo it.
The difficulty will
be to find consensus over a plan B. The Vienna meeting, which
included leaders from 10 countries, including Merkel and Tsipras, was
primarily an attempt to repair the divisions between capitals most
affected by the crisis.
The core of the
group, known as the West Balkan Conference, is comprised of countries
from southeastern Europe, including non-EU members such as Albania
and Serbia. In February, at Vienna’s urging, the forum agreed to
close the Balkan route.
Germany and Greece,
both of which opposed the move, were excluded, exacerbating tensions.
Athens bore the brunt of the closure, with about 50,000 migrants
left stranded Greece. So far, other EU countries have only accepted
about 4,000 refugees from Greece.
Though Merkel
opposed the border closures at the time, she has more recently
acknowledged that they helped reduce the flow of refugees to Germany.
Nonetheless, about 50,000 refugees have managed to illegally make
their way to Germany since the closure, proof, the German leader
argued during Saturday’s summit, that the plan is far from perfect.
MigrationRoutes
Berlin’s
prescription for the crisis has been to focus on curbing illegal
immigration and human smuggling while continuing to allow legal
migration. Yet that plan relies on the willingness of other EU
countries to accept refugees, something that remains elusive as some
countries flat-out refuse to take any.
Merkel repeated that
Germany would continue to accept the transfer of refugees under its
allocation commitments, including from Greece and Italy.
“Our goal must be
to halt illegal immigration to the degree that’s possible,”
Merkel said in a brief statement after the summit.
The biggest
flashpoint remains Greece. While Turkey has done a better job of
patrolling the Aegean, about 100 new refugees arrive in Greece every
day. So far, Greece has only send about 500 of the arrivals back to
Turkey.
Under the deal,
Turkey agreed to accept back those refugees who arrive in Greece
illegally from its shores but the process remains complicated and
slow.
Greece isn’t the
only problem, however. About 7,000 refugees are stuck on Serbia’s
border with Hungary, a situation aid groups have warrned it’s
becoming a humanitarian crisis.
Orbán said
“traditional humanitarian efforts” over the winter should help
prevent a catastrophe, but emphasized there’s still a need for
“defensive lines” to protect the EU’s external borders.
“Merkel said she
doesn’t like political speech with military overtones,” he said.
“It’s difficult not to use military language.”
Authors:
Matthew Karnitschnig
François
Hollande anuncia desmantelamento da "Selva"
PÚBLICO
24/09/2016 –
PÚBLICO
Migrantes
em Calais têm quatro meses para pedir asilo, avisa o Presidente
francês.
O Presidente francês
quer fechar o campo de refugiados em Calais e distribuir os milhares
de migrantes que ali estão por centros espalhados pelo país. Este
sábado, François Hollande apresentou pela primeira vez os detalhes
do seu plano para o campo conhecido como a “Selva”: os migrantes
terão quatro meses para pedir asilo.
O Governo tem sido
criticado pelas condições em Calais, que o Presidente reconhece
serem “inaceitáveis”. E promete que a França não será um país
“onde se encontrarão acampamentos” de migrantes, cita a AFP.
Hollande respondeu assim às críticas da direita sobre o projecto do
Governo socialista de distribuição dos migrantes.
PUB
“A nossa vontade é
desmantelar totalmente Calais e poder ter centros de acolhimento e
orientação repartidos pelo conjunto do território”, afirmou
durante uma visita a um desses estabelecimentos em Tours, no
Centro-oeste do país.
O Governo promete
desmantelar “antes do Inverno” o campo de Calais, onde vivem em
condições precárias entre 7000 e 10.000 pessoas (os números
variam segundo as fontes). A maioria pretende entrar no Reino Unido,
no lado oposto do canal da Mancha. Pedindo asilo em França, teriam
de permanecer naquele país.
“Queremos acolher
de forma humana, digna, as pessoas que vão fazer os seus pedidos de
asilo”; os outros “serão acompanhados [à fronteira]. É a regra
e eles conhecem-na perfeitamente”, sublinhou o chefe de Estado, que
referiu que a França acolherá este ano apenas 80 mil pedidos,
contra um milhão na Alemanha.
A “Selva”
tornou-se um símbolo poderoso do falhanço da Europa em lidar com a
crise vinda de África e Médio Oriente, adianta a BBC.
Metade do campo foi
desmantelado no início deste ano, mas com a questão da imigração
a prometer marcar a agenda das eleições em França no próximo ano,
Hollande fará questão em assegurar o encerramento da outra parte,
continua a estação britânica.
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