Germany's liberal refugee policy which ushered in 1.1 million asylum-seekers last year is not sustainable, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls warned today, as Chancellor Angela Merkel said a group of EU countries may take more in.
"This policy, which is justified temporarily, is unsustainable in the long term," Valls told German regional media group Funke, pointing to the limited capacity not just in Germany, but also across Europe, to receive newcomers.
"We have to say this clearly: Europe cannot take in all migrants from Syria, Iraq or Africa. It has to regain control over its borders, over its migration or asylum policies," said Valls, who is travelling to southern Germany to attend the Munich Security Conference.
However Merkel, without naming the EU members involved, said there was "a group of countries" which may voluntarily accept more refugees in exchange for redoubled efforts from Turkey to tackle illegal immigration into, and out of, its territory.
This group, which will meet on the margins of an EU summit in Brussels on February 18-19, could also help Turkey financially, she told a press conference in Berlin.
Turkey, which is already hosting 2.7 million Syrian refugees, "has been abandoned in the face of this human tragedy," the country's Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan told reporters today at a border crossing with Syria.
Confronted with the impossibility of reaching unanimous EU agreement on a method of sharing out refugees, Merkel has been talking for weeks of bringing together a group of member states dubbed "the coalition of the willing" in the media.
On the sidelines of an EU summit in December, Germany gathered officials from Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherland and Sweden for talks, perhaps a glimpse of a future coalition.
The French prime minister's criticisms, which are due to be published tomorrow, came after his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev lambasted Merkel's asylum policy.
