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Finland could accept more refugees if EU borders under control: PM

Xinhua, September 21, 2015 Adjust font size:

Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipila said on Sunday it would be possible to increase Finland's refugee quota significantly if the European Union's outer borders are well under control.

In an interview with Finnish national broadcaster Yle, Sipila said that the EU has not fulfilled its promise made in the summer to effectively control its outer borders.

"As a result of it, the refugee crisis in Europe is continually escalating all the time," he said. The latest figure released by the International Organization for Migration shows that over 400,000 immigrants have crossed the Mediterranean into Europe this year.

The Prime Minister predicted that four to five million more will enter the EU in the future.

Asylum seekers should have been required to register in the first country they arrive in accordance with the Dublin Regulation provided in the EU legislation, said Sipila. "The entire chain is now full of leaks," Sipila was cited as saying.

Sipila pointed out at present the primary concern is to resolve the acute refugee crisis in Europe. A settlement of the conflicts in the war-torn countries is a secondary concern.

Earlier this month, Finnish Interior Minister Petteri Orpo said Finland was ready to receive nearly 2,400 asylum seekers as assigned by the European Commission (EC). Orpo meanwhile rejected the commission's suggestion that a permanent mechanism be set up to tackle the human flows - a compulsory approach to resettling people in Europe.

Sipila supported Orpo's view that Finland advocates an independent national discretion on how many asylum seekers to take in.

Finnish Immigration Service has said that around 11,000 asylum seekers have arrived in Finland, and the Interior Ministry predicts the total number of arriving refugees this year to approach 30,000. Endit