REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BUCHAREST -- Visiting Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna stressed here on Wednesday that the European Union must build a common policy on illegal immigration, arguing that the key to stop the phenomenon is to solve the problem in Syria.
"We need to have our own ideas about how to solve this problem. It is not only the problem of how to divide illegal immigrants already in Europe in different countries, but how to stop this migration, how to make these people not to flee Syria into Western Europe, via Greece, Turkey and Macedonia," Schetyna told a joint conference with his Romanian counterpart Bogdan Aurescu.
"We must prepare a common European policy against illegal migration," he said, stressing that it is important to differentiate asylum seekers and economic migrants.
Grzegorz Schetyna was in Bucharest to attend the Annual Meeting of the Romanian Diplomacy.
Meanwhile Horst Seehofer, Minister-President of southern German state of Bavaria said more money for refugees is needed from German federal government on Wednesday.
"Here it is not about millions (of euros), but billions," considering the current situation of the refugee influx in Bavaria, Seehofer said after a special meeting of his cabinet.
"We expect that there will be 350,000 unprocessed applications by the end of this year," he added.
At the same time, Seehofer called for faster asylum procedures, more housing for refugees, sharper punishment of migrant traffickers and intensified fight against the abuse of asylum rights.
According to Seehofer, there were 13 traffickers in custody at the beginning of 2013, but the number has risen to 700 currently, and is still increasing every day.
In addition, Seehofer emphasized that there should be "zero tolerance for xenophobia and racism."
In the past few days, thousands of refugees journeyed from Hungary via Vienna into Munich by train. Most of them arrived on Tuesday and were sent afterwards to different refugee receiving places in and out of Bavaria.
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