'Unprecedented' migrant breach briefly closes Channel Tunnel
Lille (France) (AFP) - More than 100 migrants stormed the Channel Tunnel early Saturday, penetrating a third of the way through and attacking staff in an incident that halted overnight traffic.
The attempt to go through the tunnel from France to Britain came as the daily flow of thousands of migrants and refugees flocking to Europe's shores showed little sign of easing, with 168,000 migrants and refugees arriving in September alone, UN figures showed.
Most are seeking refuge in Germany or Sweden, but others have continued their journey to France in the hope of somehow crossing the Channel to reach England.
Traffic through the Channel Tunnel, which connects Britain and France, was halted for more than seven hours after a group of 113 migrants stormed into the tunnel in the hope of reaching the other side.
Train journeys resumed Saturday but with delays of up to three hours.
Hungarian FM: Europe will be destabilized if its borders are not protected from mass Muslim migration
Hungary's foreign minister is warning that Europe can be destabilized, first on its peripheries and then even at its center, if countries can't get control of their borders and decrease the influx of migrants.
Peter Szijjarto told the U.N. General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting on Saturday that "this is a mass migration with an unlimited source of supply of people, and if we cannot stop the influx shortly, than this challenge will stay with us for a long time."
Nordic states fret over migrant threat to Schengen
Copenhagen (AFP) - Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg on Saturday said she feared for Europe's borderless Schengen zone and urged countries to shore up their external frontiers in the face of the migrant crisis.
"The challenge for the Nordic region is not an internal one, but the fact that Schengen's outer borders have broken down," Solberg said.
"We must now make sure that the outer borders work," she added as Europe struggles to cope with its worst refugee crisis since World War II.
Schengen, which permits citizens of 26 states including non-EU member Norway to travel without passport formalities, is creaking under the strain of an unending flood of new arrivals with Germany, Austria and Slovakia reimposing border checks.
Solberg, whose Conservative Party is in a ruling coalition with the anti-immigration Progress Party, echoed concerns over Schengen expressed by French President Francois Hollande on Thursday.
Speaking to AFP, Hollande said Schengen was "in danger" due to the absence of registration centres to distinguish between refugees and economic migrants as EU states seek to share out some 120,000 asylum seekers, most fleeing the war in Syria.
Hollande said if there were no controls at the EU's external borders, states would feel obliged to restore national borders and controls "and it will be the end of Schengen."
Solberg was speaking after a joint meeting with colleagues from fellow Nordic states hosted by Denmark.
Norway controls an external EU frontier with Russia, a border which has been crossed by more than 250 Syrian refugees so far this year.
Sweden's Social Democratic Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said "all those who have the right to asylum should be given it. Those who do not have the right should be sent back."
And Danish counterpart Lars Lokke Rasmussen, a Liberal, agreed, saying: "Those who do not need protection should be sent back as quickly as possible."
The crisis has sparked some disagreement between the Nordic states with Stockholm criticising Copenhagen for waving through some migrants to Sweden to make asylum claims.
Finland then criticised Sweden for doing the same in allowing a group of mainly Iraqi migrants to cross the border to make their own claims.
Muslim migrant crisis boosts Austria far-right ahead of Vienna vote
Vienna (AFP) - Austria's far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) has drawn nearly even with the ruling Social Democrats (SPOe) in Vienna ahead of October 11 elections in the capital city state, according to a poll published Saturday.
According to the survey, the FPOe would win some 35 percent of the vote, just one point short of the SPOe, which has controlled the Austrian capital since 1945.
The FPOe, led by 46-year-old Hans-Christian Strache, has gained steadily in the polls since the spring, thanks in part to the migrant crisis, like other far-right parties across Europe.
In recent months Austria has become a major transit country for tens of thousands of migrants entering from Hungary -- having travelled up through the western Balkans -- bound for northern Europe, in particular Germany.
EU President Tusk: Migrants 'Part of Bargaining, Hybrid War'
EU Council President Donald Tusk has accused foreign leaders of using the migrant crisis to stir divisions within the EU.
At a conference in the resort town of Sopot in Poland, Tusk has warned migrants are turning into an element of the political confrontation, bargaining and "hybrid war" whose roots can be traced back to the developments in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.
AFP quotes him as saying: "For the first time in my political career I have heard politicians openly declaring that the refugees heading to Europe are their method of getting [us] to act a certain way."
Tusk did not go into details, but warned the "military solutions in Syria proposed by some countries" carries out additional risks of deepening the migrant crisis.
He also added he was not only "talking about Russia."
