France and Germany have called on the EU to force member countries to take obligatory quotas of refugees and asylum seekers, reports The Guardian.
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said the French-German position represented a “sharing of duty … the principle of solidarity” while on a visit to Switzerland on Thursday.
Shortly afterwards, François Hollande, the French president, said there should be a “permanent and obligatory mechanism” for the accepting of refugees. He carefully avoided using the word “quota”.
Tensions between EU member states have risen in recent days as 3,000 people camped outside the Keleti railway station in Budapest hoping to be allowed to travel to Germany following its declaration that Syrians who reach the country will be allowed to stay.
Hungary on Thursday permitted the refugees to enter the station, but police stopped trains short of the Austrian border, prompting fears among those on board that they would be taken to camps nearby. The train was halted by scores of riot police at the town of Bicske, an hour from Budapest, and passengers deemed to be migrants were ordered to disembark.
Hungary has become the focus of EU wrangling over asylum policy as the continent faces its biggest refugee crisis since the second world war.
Meanwhile, on the edge of the EU’s borders, the father of a Syrian boy who was photographed lying lifeless on a Turkish beach after his family attempted to reach the Greek island of Kos, said he is preparing to take the bodies of his two sons and wife to be buried in his home town of Kobani.