EU unable to take unified refugee policy: Journalist

Press TV has conducted an interview with Mojtaba Masood, a journalist and documentary filmmaker from London, on a statement by the UN refugee agency’s new head over taking more Syrian refugees in EU states.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: First of all, when Grandi says that EU states could absorb more genuine refugees from Syria, is this a fact?

Masood: Well, I think, is a fact and the biggest issue right now is the disagreement between countries. So, you have a country like Germany which has an open border policy until recently because of the assaults on women.

And you have countries like Hungary who are opposed to any sort of taking a part of refuges. So, Grandi’s actually pointing out to this organization, all the 28 EU countries and their inability to unite and organize themselves so that they take the fair number of refugees.

At the moment the burden of it is on Greece and on Italy, and most of the refugees leaving are going to Germany. So, there is disagreement in this organization within the EU on taking refugees or not and that’s why Grandi is making that point that they should come together, they should unite and take refugees on a fair basis so it doesn’t cause burden on countries like Italy and Greece.

Press TV: Right now, these calls have been made ever since the onset of this refugee crisis for the EU; however, these countries have not come together. What is it [that is] keeping them from coming together and coming up for the united strategy?

Masood: So, there is a bid for social, political issues in every country for example. For example, Germany had the open border policy, but because of the recent attacks on women, public opinion has caused them to rethink that policy.

Countries like Hungary who have fences bordering their country keeping close control of their borders mainly because they think that refugees would have a negative impact on society and even, I think, was one of the Hungarian ministers who came out and said that “Muslims will be unable to integrate within society.”

So, there are social, political issues that are causing this inconsistent narrative with every single EU country and because of this we’re seeing a burden of one or two countries taking most of the refugees. A country like Greece, which is suffering economically, has over 100,000 refugees.

So, because of the social, political issues and because of the difference of public opinion, because of the rise of groups like ISIS (Daesh) and the fear-mongering within the media, the result of this has caused the backlash in countries wanting to take refugees.

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