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IMMIGRATION

Migrant arrivals in Germany fall for second year in a row

The number of new asylum seekers in Germany has fallen for a second year in a row following the mass influx that peaked in 2015, the government said on Sunday.

Migrant arrivals in Germany fall for second year in a row
By late November this year, the number of new asylum seekers in Germany stood at around 173,000. Photo: DPA

For all of 2017, “I presume a total of fewer than 200,000 migrants,” Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere was quoted as saying by the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

The EU's top economy has taken in more than one million asylum seekers since 2015, around half from conflict-torn Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, in a mass intake that sparked a xenophobic backlash.

The total for 2015 reached 890,000, but arrivals slowed sharply after several Balkans transit countries shuttered their borders and the EU in March 2016 reached a deal with Turkey to stop crossings to the Greek islands.

Arrivals of new asylum seekers to Germany fell back to around 280,000 in 2016.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has come under strong pressure for her liberal immigration policy, and her Bavarian allies the CSU have long pushed for a maximum intake of 200,000 refugees a year.

Merkel has agreed to the figure but labelled it a “benchmark” rather than an iron-cast maximum.

De Maiziere said that by late November this year, the number of new asylum seekers in Germany stood at around 173,000.

IMMIGRATION

France ‘will not welcome migrants’ from Lampedusa: interior minister

France "will not welcome migrants" from the island, Gérald Darmanin has insisted

France 'will not welcome migrants' from Lampedusa: interior minister

France will not welcome any migrants coming from Italy’s Lampedusa, interior minister Gérald Darmanin has said after the Mediterranean island saw record numbers of arrivals.

Some 8,500 people arrived on Lampedusa on 199 boats between Monday and Wednesday last week, according to the UN’s International Organisation for
Migration, prompting European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to travel there Sunday to announce an emergency action plan.

According to Darmanin, Paris told Italy it was “ready to help them return people to countries with which we have good diplomatic relations”, giving the
example of Ivory Coast and Senegal.

But France “will not welcome migrants” from the island, he said, speaking on French television on Tuesday evening.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has called on Italy’s EU partners to share more of the responsibility.

The recent arrivals on Lampedusa equal more than the whole population of the tiny Italian island.

The mass movement has stoked the immigration debate in France, where political parties in the country’s hung parliament are wrangling over a draft law governing new arrivals.

France is expected to face a call from Pope Francis for greater tolerance towards migrants later this week during a high-profile visit to Mediterranean city Marseille, where the pontiff will meet President Emmanuel Macron and celebrate mass before tens of thousands in a stadium.

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