Clear plan needed for our arrivals - Refugee crisis

AS European justice ministers meet in Brussels today to sign off on the number of refugees each country will take, the sheer scale of coping with the enormity of this appalling crisis is finally dawning on even the most welcoming of nations. That became clear over the weekend when a huge influx of migrants into southern Germany threatened to swamp the city of Munich.

In stark contrast with the open-door policy adopted up to now by the Germans, the city authorities issued a warning following the arrival there of 13,000 refugees on Saturday, over three times more in a single day than what Ireland will take in two years, bluntly telling the world they had reached the “upper limit of our capacity”. This emergency has triggered frantic efforts to accommodate the new arrivals.

If anything, it will reinforce an anti-refugee stance verging on racism starkly evident in countries like Hungary, rapidly completing preparations to seal its frontier with a razor wire barrier. It also illustrates the cultural and political rifts within the EU, despite a strong moral imperative on the member states to do the right thing by providing a safe home for people fleeing war-torn countries. The contradictions inherent in Europe were plain to see over the weekend as hundreds of people took to the streets of Dublin in solidarity with the refugees while their counterparts in Poland were demonstrating against the idea of giving them a refuge.