President Sergio Mattarella said
Wednesday the European Union must work together to do more to
deal with the asylum seeker crisis.
"Migratory pressures, ongoing crises at Europe's door,
instability in some areas of Africa and the Middle East, the
scourge of terrorism - all these clearly indicate we must do
more, and that we need to do it via a truly collective effort,"
he said.
"We don't have a plan B - no one can realistically boast of
a plan B based on an alleged national approach to solving the
problems affecting the continent. On the contrary, we can say
that wherever Europe has shown a lack of solidarity in refugee
reception, or foreign policy, or its effectiveness in fighting
gangs of murdering extremists, it happened due to a lack not an
excess of Europe".
The barriers dividing Europe are "dead weight burdening our
path," Mattarella added. "Backtracking on Schengen would be an
act of self-harm for everybody". He spoke in reference to
Austria, which has begun building a 250-meter barrier across
road links with Italy at the Brenner Pass border crossing in the
Alps to keep asylum seekers out.
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