Yahoo – AFP,
August 28, 2016
German Chancellor Angela Merkel gives her summer interview with journalists of German public TV chain ARD on August 28, 2016 in Berlin (AFP Photo/Rainer Jensen) |
Berlin
(AFP) - The refusal of some EU countries to accept Muslim refugees is
"unacceptable", Chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday as Germany
called for quotas to divide the influx throughout the bloc.
"That's
not right at all that some countries say: 'generally speaking, we don't want to
have Muslims in our countries'," Merkel told German public television
channel ARD.
Backing the
idea of a quota system for taking in migrants, the German leader stressed that
"everyone must do their part," and that "a common solution must
be found."
A common
European migration policy is a highly controversial issue, which will be on the
agenda of an EU summit next month, with eastern members the Czech Republic,
Hungary, Poland and Slovakia refusing to take in refugees under an EU-wide
quota system championed by Berlin.
Slovak
President Robert Fico has vowed he would "never bring even a single
Muslim" into his country.
In 2015,
Germany took in around a million asylum seekers, most from Syria, Iraq or
Afghanistan, and this year it expects up to 300,000 more to arrive, the Federal
Office for Migrants and Refugees (BAMF) said Sunday.
"We
can ensure optimal services for up to 300,000. Should more people arrive, it
would put us under pressure, then we would go into so-called crisis mode. But
even then we would not have conditions like last year," BAMF chief
Frank-Juergen Weise told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper
Merkel's
decision last September to open the doors to asylum seekers was seen in many
European nations, notably those in the east, as an invitation for further mass
migration.
Some, like
the Slovak leader, voiced fears of the emergence of a significant Muslim
community in their countries.
On Tuesday,
Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said he does not want a "large
Muslim community... given the problems we are seeing" and that each EU
member should be able to choose how many migrants to accept.
German
public sentiment is sharply divided when it comes to Merkel, who has not yet
said whether she will stand for a fourth term in a general election expected in
September or October next year.
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