Merkel urges 'fair' distribution of migrants

The situation of refugees in the EU is "very unsatisfactory," Merkel said in her weekly video podcast, which was released on Saturday.

Europe must "offer the refugees reasonable conditions at their place of arrival," Merkel continued. She also stressed the need to "develop a sense of fairness among the member states of the European Union" about taking in and supporting such individuals.

Simultaneously, the reasons for such a mass exodus must be dealt with in the countries of origin, Merkel added. This is necessary for sustaining political stability in such countries: "We must try to minimize the reasons for migration through development aid, through political cooperation and also through support for the African Union."

Kosovo exodus

The stream of asylum seekers from Kosovo has re-kindled an old debate within the EU, already aggravated in Germany by the rise of anti-immigration parties and movements such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West (PEGIDA).

In January, 3,630 Kosovars applied for political asylum in Germany, according to the latest figures. This represents an 85 percent increase over December 2014. In 2015, more than 18,000 Kosovars have reached Germany, and many are waiting for an opportune moment to submit their asylum application, the government said.

Bavaria, Baden-Wuerttemberg, North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony, the four most affected states, have already decided to speed up the vetting process for asylum applications, but experts are beginning to doubt whether it will be possible to accept or reject an asylum application within the targeted period of two weeks.

Unrealistic plans

Bernd Mesovic, deputy head of Pro Asyl, the leading pro-immigration organization in Germany, considers the plan unrealistic, he told the newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger on Saturday.

Finding the extra personnel necessary will be tough, and to train them in the job will take up to nine months, according to Boris Pistorius, interior minister of Lower Saxony. "These problems cannot be solved by way of the asylum legislation," he said.

Even after the asylum application has been rejected, there remains the question of deportation, for which the individual states are responsible. The central government in Berlin has been expressing dissatisfaction with the way the states have been handling the affair.

Volker Kauder, Christian Democrat (CDU) politician and chief of the CDU-CSU parliamentary faction, commented in an interview with the "Rheinische Post" daily on Saturday: "As long as strict deportation does not take place, uncontrolled immigration to Germany will continue to increase."

ac/es (dpa, AFP)