Migrants: stop ‘blame game’

Salzburg – The European Union must end the “blame game” on migration and instead focus on working more with foreign countries and strengthening its border to bring down arrivals, the chair of the bloc’s leaders said.

The 28 EU leaders are meeting in the Austrian city of Salzburg to tackle migration, an issue that has badly damaged their unity.

They will seek more ways of reducing immigration and, right before chairing the talks, European Council President Donald Tusk said progress had been made since the 2015 peak in Mediterranean arrivals. Fewer than 100 000 migrants have reached Europe without necessary documentation this year.

“Instead of taking political advantage of the situation, we should focus on what works ... We can no longer be divided into those who want to solve the problem of illegal migrant flows and those who want to use it for political gain,” Tusk said.

More than a million refugees and migrants arrived from the Middle East and Africa in 2015, leading to a rise in anti-immigrant parties challenging liberal democracies around the EU.

The EU has since struck deals with countries from Turkey to Lebanon to Libya, offering them money and aid in exchange for tighter control.