EUROPE-MIGRANTS/MERKEL-RASMUSSEN Merkel says EU leaders ready to meet to discuss refugee crisis

Record ID: 142233

  • Title: EUROPE-MIGRANTS/MERKEL-RASMUSSEN Merkel says EU leaders ready to meet to discuss refugee crisis
  • Date: 28th August 2015
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF MILITARY HONOURS CEREMONY
  • Embargoed: 12th September 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA9FDIE7Q1I8ZS1RDRVKP7K187H
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday (August 28) that European Union leaders were ready for an emergency meeting, if needed, to discuss the refugee crisis but that EU interior ministers were already working intensively to find solutions.
    "The heads of state and governments are standing ready to meet if the preliminary work is done and if it's necessary to hold an emergency summit," she said at a news conference in Berlin.
    "There are already very intensive efforts at the EU level taking place about how we can better cope with this issue," she added, noting that a summit would make sense if decisions had to be taken by EU leaders after interior ministers finish the work.
    "There is fortunately already a high level of agreement between Germany and France that gives me a lot of hope that we will be able to come up with solutions," Merkel said.
    EU leaders declared this week that the EU has failed in the face of human agony on its frontiers.
    One of the points of contention is quotas for the distribution of refugees, which leaders have still not been able to agree on.
    Danish Prime Minster Lokke Rasmussen said that even if agreement was reached on sharing out refugees across the bloc, this alone would not be sufficient in tackling the crisis.
    "A fair burden-sharing is not a solution in itself. We also need to reduce the number of migrants that arrive in Europe to be able to welcome those refugees who have a real need for protection," he said.
    The number of refugees and migrants crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe has passed 300,000 this year, up from 219,000 in the whole of 2014, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday.
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