Swedish prime minister urges EU-wide response to refugee crisis
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven on Sunday urged fellow European Union nations to take in more asylum seekers, saying that only by sharing the burden can the bloc deal with its worst refugee crisis since World War II.
Germany, Austria and Sweden have accepted thousands of refugees, many fleeing conflict in Syria and Iraq, while other EU nations have not been as welcoming and are resisting calls for a quota system to redistribute asylum seekers.
“But this is not enough. The whole of Europe has to do more,” Lofven said at a rally in support of refugees in Stockholm. “There is need for a mandatory and permanent system for burden sharing so that all EU members should receive people who are fleeing for their lives.
“Germany, Sweden and a few other countries can’t do this alone, all EU members have to help out,” he said.
Thousands of people attended the “Welcome Refugees” rally at Stockholm’s Citizen’s Square. It was organized by the youth wings of the main political parties, with the exception of the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats.
(c)2015 Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany)
Visit Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany) at www.dpa.de/English.82.0.html
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
