Europe ‘close to limits’ on refugee influx: Tusk
Source: Al Arabiya
Europe is “close to limits” on its ability to accept new waves of refugees, EU President Donald Tusk said Sunday, urging the broader international community to shoulder its share of the burden.
“The practical capability of Europe to host new waves of refugees, not to mention irregular economic migrants, is close to limits,” he told a press conference on the sidelines of the G20 summit.
A steady stream of refugees has flowed into Europe over the last year, largely fleeing from the civil war in Syria.
The issue has become a political hot potato for leaders in the region as a series of extremist terror attacks and rising anti-globalization sentiment have combined to create an increasingly inhospitable environment for refugees from the brutal conflict.
Read more: http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/world/2016/09/04/Europe-close-to-limits-on-refugee-influx-Tusk.html
Voting began on Sunday in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, where polls project the anti-immigrant Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party will make huge gains amid growing discontent with Chancellor Angela Merkel and her open-door refugee policy.
The election, taking place exactly a year after Merkel's decision to open Germany's borders to hundreds of thousands of refugees, will be followed by another key vote in Berlin in two weeks and national elections next September.
Voters already punished Merkel in three state elections in March, voting in droves for the AfD and rejecting Merkel's Christian Democrats.
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is a small coastal state in northeastern Germany with just 1.3 million eligible voters, but losses there would be humiliating for Merkel, who has her own electoral district in the state.
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