MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Rutte, whose country assumes the rotating EU presidency in January, said that southern nations of the European Union have not yet implemented policies to tackle the "massive influx" of refugees from the Middle East and central Asia.
"As we all know from the Roman empire, big empires go down if the borders are not well-protected," Rutte was quoted as saying by the Financial Times newspaper. "So we really have an imperative that it is handled."
Europe has been beset by a refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants fleeing their home countries to escape violence and poverty. EU border agency Frontex recorded over 1.2 million illegal border crossings into the European Union in the first 10 months of 2015.
