Germany seeks help, EU holds emergency talks
BRUSSELS — Migrants at Hungary’s crowded border crossings with Austria and Serbia faced fear and uncertainty Monday, as several European Union countries beefed up border controls in a precedent that could gut the bloc’s cherished principle of free movement among most of its nations.
While Hungarian police patrolled their border fence on horseback and workers uncoiled the razor-wire and steel mesh that would finish it, Austria, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Slovakia all rushed to join Germany in tightening border controls. The efforts created significant pressure points as the flow of people fleeing violence at home and trekking through the Balkans showed no sign of abating.
“Hurry up! They’re letting us through!” some shouted in Arabic at a checkpoint near Roszke, Hungary, as police blocked a rail line where thousands had entered the country, funnelling the migrants to waiting buses.
Elsewhere, bottlenecks developed at the Austrian border town of Nickelsdorf, where a police spokesman said a main highway had to be closed because up to 10,000 migrants were crossing in from Hungary. Germany’s border checks also caused traffic jams Monday as long as 20 kilometres on highways in Austria.
Faced with a full-on emergency, EU interior ministers sought a common stance on how to equitably relocate 160,000 refugees across much of the continent. Their effort was a test case to see whether there was enough unity between the bloc’s western and eastern members to contain the crisis.
German Interior Minister Thomas De Maiziere said that “an agreement in principle” had been reached late Monday, but it still left the divvying up of quota among member nations for an Oct. 8 meeting in Luxembourg.
“If we don’t find a solution, then this chaos will be the result,” said Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn of Luxembourg, which holds the EU presidency. “That will become a domino effect and then we can forget Schengen” — the open-border policy generally considered one of the greatest achievements of the EU.
After a deal was sealed to relocate 32,000 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece, EU ministers were working Monday on draft plans obtained by The Associated Press to spread some 120,000 more around Europe with “due regard” for flexibility among nations, a move that would gut an initial proposal to make the migrant quotas mandatory. The EU ministers were also making it easier to decide on asylum claims and to detain rejected asylum seekers who refuse to leave the EU voluntarily.