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German and Austrian Chancellors Call for Acceleration of Hotspots in Greece

merkel3Amid instability and high security alerts throughout the European continent, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann called for the European Union to buttress the protection of its own borders, during a joint press conference on Thursday in Berlin.
Since Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris, heated deliberation has unfolded over how to handle the massive refugee inflow into the European Union as well as the lack of closed borders among 26 of the continent’s countries, something that is dictated by the Schengen Area.
Hotspots for migrants are identification and registration centres that are ran both by the local authorities and European Union agents. Thus far only one hotspot has opened in Greece, on the island of Lesvos, which has seen almost 400,000 new arrivals this year according to the United Nations. Merkel called for the accelerated placement of the new hotspots that are scheduled to open elsewhere in the country.
“On the topic of refugees, there will be no solution when it’s about reduction, when it’s about order, when it’s about controls, or when it’s about legalization on the German-Austrian border,” Merkel is quoted by the Associated Press as saying, and added “This has to be on the exterior borders of the European Union.”
A significant number of new arrivals seek to get further into the European mainland and ultimately get to Germany where they will request asylum. Austria is very often the gateway into Germany. The AP reports that this number was around 758,000 by the end of October.
During an earlier interview with German television station ARD, Faymann condemned the idea of European nations closing their borders, dubbing it the end of the European idea. While he also argued that there needs to be improved registration process upon arrival in Greece, the Austrian chancellor noted that the war in Syria must come to an end and living conditions in Turkey must improve.
Hungary, a European Union member, has already raised a fence on its borders with Serbia and Croatia, while France, which is still under an emergency state, has closed its borders following the attack.
Merkel and Faymann’s remarks come one day after a joint press conference by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, in which the latter agued that neither Turkey nor Greece should carry this burden alone. The two prime ministers also noted that the neighbouring countries’ coast guard and some of the ministries will coordinate to reduce migrant smuggling operations in the eastern part of the Aegean Sea, which lies between them.

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