Migrants trek to Vienna after Austria suspends trains

AP News ^ | 9/11/2015 | George Jahn

[HomerBohn]

VIENNA (AP) -- Desperate to head west even after Austria cut the number of border trains, a trickle of migrants marching toward Vienna swelled into a torrent Friday as thousands made their way toward the city on foot.

But the Austrian capital has only been a transit point for many of those arriving over the past week. Most have gone on to Germany, which saw its efforts to get fellow European Union nations to help share the burden firmly rejected Friday by four Central European nations.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier had urged fellow EU nations to give more help to those seeking safety in Europe, describing the influx as "probably the biggest challenge for the European Union in its history."

"No single country can resolve such a challenge alone - we need European solidarity," he told reporters in the Czech capital of Prague.

Despite his warning, he failed to persuade his Czech, Slovak, Polish and Hungarian counterparts to drop their objections to a proposed EU-wide quota system to help migrants already in the EU's most overburdened nations. Steinmeier then left a joint news conference early, allegedly due to a busy schedule.

Germany has already seen 450,000 migrants enter the country and is expecting at least 800,000 this year, the most in Europe.

"We need to have control over how many (migrants) we are capable of accepting," said Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek, who hosted the meeting.

[bboop]

Yes, exactly! Jan Sobieski won’t be there again!! Have these folks no sense of history? Or is it their ‘fearless leaders,’ doing what our ‘fearless leaders’ are doing? Don’t we all outnumber the ‘fearless ones.’???

[SpinnerWebb]

“The hills are alive
With the sound of Adhan.
My head faces Mecca,
My rump in the air.”

[samtheman]

Maybe taking down the Iron Curtain wasn’t such a great idea after all.

This has been much discussed in FR and elsewhere over the years.

If Reagan knew then what we know now, I wonder if he would have slowed the whole process down and sought more of a sustainable equilibrium with the Soviet Union.