EU leaders were yesterday holding an emergency summit on boosting aid and tightening borders to tackle the migration crisis, but a growing east-west split over a deal to relocate 120,000 refugees threatens to poison the talks.
Hours before the meeting, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban rejected German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “moral imperialism” over the worst such crisis since World War II, while Slovakia said it would dispute the refugee quota deal in court.
Despite Croatia reporting a record number of arrivals and countries across the region feeling the strain from refugees from war zones like Syria, EU leaders appeared as divided as ever.
Photo: EPA
Hungary, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia voted against the relocation plan, saying the EU has no right to override national sovereignty and make them accept people from frontline states.
“The most important thing is that there should be no moral imperialism,” Hungary’s hardline leader said during a visit to the southern German state of Bavaria when asked what he expected from Merkel.
European Council President Donald Tusk hopes to move on from the 120,000 refugee relocations, which is just a fraction of the 500,000 migrants who have come to Europe’s shores and the estimated 4 million on Syria’s borders.
In response to the spiraling crisis, at the summit Tusk was to ask leaders to address issues including strengthening the union’s external borders, amid concerns the EU’s internal passport-free zone is under threat.
Greece was expected to come under particular pressure to accept EU help to strengthen its borders.
Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, was reportedly also pressing EU leaders to offer more aid to affected countries outside the bloc, including the Western Balkans, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, as well as to the UN World Food Programme.
Ahead of the meeting, the European Commission, the executive arm of the 28-nation bloc, proposed an extra 1.7 billion euros (US$1.9 billion) in funds.
Orban has proposed a 3 billion euro fund for dealing with the crisis, but it was not clear whether the leaders would discuss that.
With tensions brewing, EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos yesterday rejected any suggestion that the rare failure to reach a unanimous agreement on the plan did more harm than good.
“On the contrary, it is a victory for the EU and for all member states,” Avramopoulos said.
Yet Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, whose country would be made to take 800 migrants under the plan, said he was prepared to break the EU’s rules rather than accept the “diktat” from Brussels.
In a sign of the problems within the union, the European Commission said it had issued formal warnings to 19 EU states, including Germany, for breaching rules on the treatment of asylum seekers.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was