Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday condemned a surge in German attacks on refugee shelters and warned that the issue of asylum could become a bigger challenge for the European Union than the Greek debt crisis.
Merkel said that Germany is unworthy of the 200 arson attacks against the homes meant ofr asylum seekers this year.
The issue of asylum could be the next major European project, in which we show whether we are really able to take joint action.
— Angela Merkel, Chancellor, Germany to ZDF Public Television
For Germany, she believes, the situation is absolutely unsatisfactory as the number of asylum-seekers could reach 600,000 this year.
She called for the European Union to establish a list of safe countries of origin, where citizens are not under threat of violence or persecution.
Germany’s interior minister recetnly revealed that 40% of asylum seekers in germany were from neighbouring Balkans area, calling it an embarrassment for Europe.
Not just Balkans, about half of Germany’s 300,000 asylum applications since January have come from the southeast European region that includes Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.
Berlin is looking at ways to deter such claims in order to better serve people from crisis zones such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The UN refugee agency said more than 50 million people were forced to migrate due to conflict and crisis, first since World War II.
(With inputs from PTI)
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