EU risks 'tectonic changes' as migrant flow swells to over 700,000

Europe's worst migration crisis since World War II risks triggering "tectonic changes", a top EU official warned Tuesday, as figures showed more than 700,000 newcomers reached the continent's Mediterranean shores so far this year.

Leaders of France and Germany were due to discuss the crisis which has also prompted a spat between the premier of Germany's Bavaria state and neighbouring Austria over its handling of migrants.

"The situation will deteriorate even further," European Council president Donald Tusk said, warning of a "new wave of refugees (arriving) from Aleppo and other Syrian regions under Russian bombardment".

"I have no doubt that this challenge has the potential to change the European Union we have built," he told the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

"And what is even more dangerous, it has the potential to create tectonic changes in the European political landscape. And these are not changes for the better."

Meanwhile, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker slammed EU member states for only providing less than half of the experts pledged to the bloc's Frontex border agency in migrant hotspots Greece and Italy.

"Member states have been moving slowly at a time when they should be running," he said...
  AFP
ahram.org.eg
27/10/15