European governments "sleepwalking" without coordinated migration response: European parliamentary chief

European governments are "sleepwalking into disaster" if they don't adopt a more coordinated response to migration, said the president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Anne Brasseur, here Tuesday.

"We are sleepwalking into disaster if we do not work together," Brasseur, of Luxembourg, said at the Fourth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament, which entered its second day here Tuesday.

Brasseur said that while there was recognition of the need for a coordinated international response to migration, there was little political will to put this into action.

"Numerous statements and reactions show the need for a coordinated international response," she said. "At the same time in practice, political will for more international solidarity and more responsibility sharing seems to be dangerously lacking."

Meanwhile, Brasseur called on parliamentarians to work together and show greater solidarity, saying "We parliamentarians must tell our governments to stop defending our own corners and show greater solidarity."

Brasseur said that the current migration crisis in Europe was a reminder that countries and continents do not live in isolation.

"The inflow of refugees and migrants to Europe reminds us that we do not live isolated from each other," she said. "It reminds us that state borders and frontiers between continents, cannot and should not prevent people from escaping violence and persecution."

More than 230,000 migrants and asylum seekers have reached Europe by sea so far this year.

The number of "exhausted and desperate" women and children making their way from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq through the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia seeking refuge in Europe has tripled in the past three months, meaning some 3,000 passing through the land-locked Balkan country every day, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said Tuesday. Endit