EU agrees on new border force to tackle migrant crisis
US urged to accept more refugees from Syrian war
AFP, LUXEMBOURG
AFP, LUXEMBOURG: EU interior ministers formally agreed Thursday on a proposal for a new border and coastguard force that could intervene in under-pressure countries like Greece to slow the influx of migrants.
The proposal must now go to the European Parliament for approval which officials said could come by June to allow the new force to be operational by the end of the summer.
Brussels also played down concerns that the new force would impact national sovereignty, saying individual countries would have to give their consent before it intervened.
Today the council has reached an agreement on the European border and coast guard, EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos told a news conference after the ministers met in Luxembourg.
If we keep up this pace I have confidence we will be able to finalise the legislative process by June.
In December, EU leaders set a June 30 deadline for agreement on the new force, a key part of the blocs strategy for tackling the flow of the migrants along with a deal with Turkey sealed last month.
Brussels aims to have the force start operations in September and be fully operational by November, under a roadmap unveiled last month to restore the passport-free Schengen Zone after the travails of the migration crisis.
Several countries have reintroduced border controls that were eliminated years ago as part of Schengen as the EU deals with a record flow of more than one million migrants and refugees since the start of 2015.
Avramopoulos said it was impossible that the force would erode national sovereignty, a growing concern in a bloc increasingly beset by criticism of meddling by Brussels in countries affairs.
National sovereignty is not threatened by this initiativeon the contrary I would say, he said. It will intervene always with the approval of the member state.
A European source said the ministers had agreed that the European Council grouping member states would have to agree on any interventioneffectively giving the concerned country a veto if it did not consent.
AP from Washington adds: A top European Union official urged the United States on Thursday to accept more refugees fleeing the civil war in Syria, saying that asylum seekers should not be equated with violent extremists.
Stavros Lambrinidis, the EUs special representative for human rights, said that taking in more refugees would help ease the pressure on Europe, which is facing a massive refugee crisis.
To the extent that we can all understand this global issue and share the responsibility, this will clearly alleviate the pressure on Europe right now and Greece in particular, Lambrinidis said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
To our knowledge, there is absolutely no evidence in the case of the US, that giving asylum to people is opening the door to terrorists.
The US annually accepts 70,000 refugees from around the world. This group includes people fleeing violence, religious persecution and war. The Obama administration announced last year that the number of people invited to move to the US as refugees would be increased to 85,000 in 2016, including about 10,000 Syrians.
Lambrinidis said that while it was important for authorities to be vigilant in screening migrants, the anti-refugee rhetoric that is on the rise in the US and the EU is alarming and undermines the countries international obligations.
Europe has seen a rise of far-right parties fueled by the refugee crisis and terrorist attacks in European capitals. In the US, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has called for temporarily barring Muslims from entering the country and refusing entry to Syrian refugees.
