Migrant Crisis May Tear Apart 'Selfish' EU – Italian FM

Italy’s foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni warns that the chaotic scenes this weekend where thousands of migrants remained stranded Saturday in a no-man's land on the border between northern Greece and Macedonia represent a real threat to the free movement of people across Europe.

"On immigration, Europe is in danger of displaying the worst of itself: selfishness, haphazard decision-making and rows between member states," Gentiloni told Il Messaggero.

"I am very worried. Today it is on this issue that Europe will either rediscover its soul or lose it for good," he warned.

He then urged Italy's EU partners to stop squabbling and start working on a common solution to the crisis.

The alternative, he warned, would be the inevitable collapse of the Schengen accords which allow free travel across much of continental Europe.

In Germany, meanwhile, Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a fellow Social Democrat, issued a joint call for the EU's asylum policy to be revamped.

"It is necessary to share out refugees in Europe fairly," the two said in the Sunday edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper.
They also called for a "European asylum code" that would guarantee EU-wide asylum status.

EU interior and foreign ministers will discuss the migrant crisis in mid-October, ahead of a summit in Malta in November, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Thursday.