Berlin- The refusal of some EU countries to accept Muslim refugees is “unacceptable”, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday as Germany called for quotas to divide the influx throughout the bloc.

“That’s not right at all that some countries say: ‘generally speaking, we don’t want to have Muslims in our countries’,” Merkel told German public television channel ARD.

During the interview, Merkel rejected Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel’s criticism that the conservatives had “underestimated” the challenge of integrating record numbers of migrants.

Gabriel leads the Social Democrats (SPD) — the junior coalition partner in Merkel’s government — and his comments come as campaigning kicks off for a federal election next year and regional elections in Berlin and the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

In the spotlight
Merkel said the federal government had worked hard with state and municipal authorities to solve problems, changed laws and provided funding.

Backing the idea of a quota system for taking in migrants, the German leader stressed that “everyone must do their part,” and that “a common solution must be found.”

A common European migration policy is a highly controversial issue, which will be on the agenda of an EU summit next month, with eastern members the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia refusing to take in refugees under an EU-wide quota system championed by Berlin.

In 2015, Germany took in around a million asylum seekers, most from Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan, and this year it expects up to 300,000 more to arrive, the Federal Office for Migrants and Refugees (BAMF) said on Sunday.

“We can ensure optimal services for up to 300,000. Should more people arrive, it would put us under pressure, then we would go into so-called crisis mode. But even then we would not have conditions like last year,” BAMF chief Frank-Juergen Weise told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper

Source: AFP and Reuters, 29 August 2016