AFP, VIENNA: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, hurt by a string of dismal election results over her refugees policy, was in Vienna Saturday for talks with leaders of countries along the Balkan migrant route.
They included Hungary’s premier Victor Orban, scornful of Merkel’s “open-door” stance, Alexis Tsipras of Greece, home to 60,000 stranded migrants, and Boyko Borisov of newly under-pressure Bulgaria.
Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern said that the aim of the talks, also attended by top EU officials, was to “accelerate” momentum towards ending Europe’s worst migration crisis since 1945.
He said that this included “massively improving” the securing of the EU’s outer borders, more efforts to look after refugees in the region they come from and, longer term, a “Marshall Plan” for Africa. “At the moment there is a range of individual measures but no common European line,” Kern told the Kleine Zeitung daily.