Europe divided over refugee-quota plan
German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced plans Monday to spend $6.7 billion on refugees as the European Commission prepared to set mandatory quotas for taking in the desperate migrants — but the defiant Hungarian prime minister remained dead set against it.
Reflecting on the “breathtaking weekend behind us,” Merkel said all EU countries should pitch in to handle the massive influx of refugees — about 800,000 of whom are expected in Germany by year’s end.
But Hungary’s intransigent rightwing prime minister, Viktor Orban, said he wasn’t prepared to help and questioned the quota system.
“How is this going to work? Has anyone thought this through?” he asked after more than 15,000 people crossed his country’s border with Austria on their way to Germany this weekend.
“We represent the position of what the Americans call ‘first things first,’ ” Orban said. “As long as we are unable to defend Europe’s external borders, it makes no sense to talk about the fate of the immigrants.”
The European Commission on Wednesday plans to propose the mandatory quota system to relocate an additional 120,000 refugees.
The initial proposal in May called for 40,000.
Meanwhile, several hundred refugees tired of waiting for buses burst through Hungarian police lines in Roszke near the Serbian border.
Several hundred camped out in mud surrounded by Hungarian police officers.
“This is the socalled developed Europe?” asked one refugee named Mouti, 50, quoted by The Guardian. “It’s supposed to be different to the fking Arab world.”
British Prime Minister David Cameron said his country would accept up to 20,000 refugees in the next five years. And French President François Hollande said his nation would welcome 24,000 over two years.
In Greece, officials said the Aegean island of Lesbos was on the verge of “explosion” — with 17,000 refugees crammed into the capital, Mytilene.
The population of the entire island is only 85,000.