国际英语新闻:Thousands Rally in Europe Over Migrant Crisis

Austria's Faymann told Der Spiegel that Orban was acting "irresponsibly" when he maintained that all the refugees were economic ones. He said Austria, Germany and Sweden — the countries that have been the most welcoming to the current influx of people — recognize that the migrants are war refugees and stand by their right to asylum.

On Friday at a meeting in Prague, the foreign ministers of Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia refused entreaties by their counterparts from Germany and Luxembourg to accept the mandatory quotas, despite the plan's   endorsement by the United Nations.

​The plan allows for the distribution of 160,000 migrants among the 28 EU member nations.

“We need to have control over how many [migrants] we are capable of accepting,” said Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek, host of the gathering.

Germany’s Frank-Walter Steinmeier had urged a unified approach to dealing with Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II, possibly “the biggest challenge for the EU in its history,” he said.
 
Steinmeier also called for a "fair distribution mechanism" for dealing with the additional migrants expected to enter Europe. His country receives more asylum requests than any other European nation.

Denmark declines plan
 
Denmark also announced Friday that it would not absorb any of 160,000 asylum seekers. “We have taken our share,” Integration Minister Inger Stojberg said.

More than 3,000 migrants arrived in Denmark this week, though most had indicated they were en route to friendlier Sweden.

The dissension prompted the European Council's president, Donald Tusk, to say Friday that he would call a summit of EU leaders this month unless their ministers could agree Monday on how the bloc should cope with the migrant surge.

Meanwhile, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) voiced support for the EU distribution plan but also noted that by year’s end the EU would have to relocate 200,000 refugees from the front-line countries of Greece, Italy and Hungary.
 
The U.N. called for the immediate establishment of large-scale reception centers in those countries.

The UNHCR also welcomed Washington’s offer to accept 10,000 more refugees and increase its humanitarian assistance to Syrians fleeing violence at home. But it said “the United States could and should do more.”

More on U.S. plan
 
The United States has taken in about 1,500 refugees from Syria since its civil war broke out more than four years ago.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the president approved accepting more of the refugees beginning in October.

The White House promised "robust" background checks on the new arrivals to ensure that national security is not endangered. U.S. intelligence chief James Clapper said this week that he feared Islamic State militants might infiltrate the refugees escaping conflict in the Mideast as they head to other countries.