Germany challenges other EU nations to take in migrants

BERLIN – As more migrants continue to arrive, Germany called on its neighbors Monday to share the burden of accepting refugees fleeing war and violence, saying that the crisis had become a test of European values and solidarity.

France said it would take in 24,000 refugees under a European Union-wide quota system being prepared that some EU states are almost certain to reject. And British Prime Minister David Cameron announced Monday that his nation would take in 20,000 Syrian refugees by the end of the current session of Parliament in 2020.

He added that they would come from among those living in camps in Syria and its neighboring countries rather than from refugees and migrants already on European soil.

But Germany is bearing the brunt of the crisis, estimating that it could absorb up to 800,000 refugees and migrants this year, more than double what it had forecast at the beginning of 2015. Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that her government would live up to its moral duty to provide sanctuary to those legally entitled to it, however many they might be.

Even so, the thousands who landed in this country just this past weekend have some German officials worried about resources being pushed to the limit.

Merkel said her government, which oversees Europe’s biggest economy, would set aside $6.6 billion next year to deal with the influx.

“Germany is a country willing to take people in, but refugees can be received in all countries of the European Union in such a way that they can find refuge from civil war and from persecution,” Merkel said. “It is time for the European Union to pull its weight. We are a Europe of values.”

She and French President Francois Hollande have been working on a plan that would distribute 120,000 asylum seekers among EU nations based on each country’s size and economic strength. The plan is expected to be unveiled in Brussels on Wednesday.

But agreement among all 28 EU members appears elusive, with several Central and Eastern European states saying categorically that they do not want to accept any refugees.

Hundreds of asylum seekers, many from Syria and Iraq, continue to arrive daily on Greece’s eastern islands. More than 230,000 have come ashore to date, including 61 rescued Monday from the sea off the coast of the hard-hit island of Lesbos.