Apart in Sadness? EU Expects US to Share Refugee Crisis Burden

Washington must share the cost of the unprecedented refugee crisis European countries are currently facing, member of the Bundestag Sahra Wagenknecht told Sputnik on Thursday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik), Yulia Shamporova — The current wave of refugees from conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North and Sub-Saharan Africa, considered the largest movement of people in the region since World War II, has put significant strain on EU member states.

Many politicians, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, have blamed the current refugee crisis on failed US policies in the Middle East and Africa.

"It would be more than appropriate if the US that so far has not agreed to take on more than merely a few refugees herself, at least pledged money to share in the cost of the refugee crisis," Wagenknecht, a member of the National Committee of the Left party, said.

According to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, some 500,000 people have arrived in Europe since the beginning of 2015. Care for refugees may cost Germany alone some 10 billion euros ($11 billion) in 2015.

The US State Department said in August that the United States planned to admit up to 8,000 Syrian refugees in 2016.

Western states have an obligation to provide humanitarian support to hundreds of thousands migrants that they bear responsibility for displacing, a German lawmaker told Sputnik on Thursday.

"It is cynical to question aid for refugees that the West itself has produced," Sahra Wagenknecht argued adding that the current refugee crisis is the product of EU, US "bloody wars" in the Middle East and Africa.

"It is our duty to provide the people who have to flee, with refuge and safety," she said.