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• Refugee crisis: latest news from across Europe 15.1.16

Refugee crisis: latest news from across Europe 15.1.16

01 January 2016

EU: Refugee crisis: "If Schengen collapses, it'll be start of end European project" (European Parliament article, pdf): "Migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos warned MEPs the refugee crisis was "getting worse" during a meeting organised by the civil liberties committee on 14 January. He said the EU's unity was at stake amid an increase of "populism and nationalism". The commissioner also called on member states to deliver on their own promises and show solidarity to each other: "If Schengen collapses, it will be the beginning of the end of the European project".

See: Speaking points of Commissioner Avramopoulos from the meeting with the LIBE committee (European Commission press release, pdf)

And: Cash Crisis: If Schengen Goes, the Euro is Finished, Warns Merkel (Sputnik, link): "The success of Europe's single market and currency is dependent on the survival of the Schengen Area, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday, remarking that the EU is "vulnerable" due to a lack of control of migration."

 News (15.1.16)

EU: Juncker: border checks comes with €3bn bill (EUobserver, link): "European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker on Friday said that reimposing border checks throughout Europe, aside from the hour-long waiting times, would cost billions. "If it continues like this, it means that the overall additional costs for border checks in Europe could amount to €3 billion," he told reporters."

GERMANY: Anti-refugee right-wingers go on rampage in Leipzig (Al Arabiya, link): "Over 200 masked right-wing supporters, carrying placards with racist overtones, went on a rampage in the eastern city of Leipzig on Monday night, throwing fireworks, breaking windows and vandalising buildings, police said."

GREECE: From refugee life vest to sleeping aid (UNHCR, link): "Vast piles of lifejackets clogging the idyllic beaches of the Greek island of Lesvos are testimony to an often harrowing journey made by thousands of refugees and migrants crossing to Europe."

Norway tells refugees who used cycling loophole to enter to return to Russia (The Guardian, link): "Norway has said it will send back refugees who had taken advantage of a legal loophole to cross its Arctic border with Russia on bicycles.

About 5,500 people, most of them Syrians, cycled through the Arctic Circle Storskog crossing in 2015 to take advantage of a loophole in border rules: while Russia does not allow people to cross on foot and Norway does not let in drivers carrying people without documents, bicycles are permitted at both ends."

Slovakia’s PM vows never to settle Muslim refugees (New Europe, link): "Muslim migrants and refugees are not welcome in Slovakia, according to the country’s Prime Minister Robert Fico. He vowed not to allow refugees from the Middle East to establish “a united Muslim community in Slovakia”.

“Not only are we refusing mandatory quotas, we will never make a voluntary decision that would lead to the formation of a united Muslim community in Slovakia, This is the only way to eliminate the risks,” Fico said last week, rejecting a European Union plan to resettle 120,000 refugees among 26 of the EU’s 28 member states."

UK: Migrant communities think more like non-migrants after just one generation, study suggests (The Conversation, link): "A common fear among the general public in many Western countries is that immigrants have ways of thinking or social values that are fundamentally different to them, and that these differences prevent them from integrating into Western societies."