Germany: EU must work together or risk new migrant influx

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, right, shakes hands with Germany's Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, following their meeting to discuss cooperation on migration management in Ankara, Turkey, Friday, Oct. 4, 2019. Cavusoglu, Seehofer and European Commissioner for Immigration Dimitris Avramopoulos later met for breakfast and further discussed the migrants issue. (Turkish Foreign Ministry via AP, Pool)

BERLIN — Germany’s top security official says European Union nations need to work better together on the issue of migration or they risk facing a new flood of asylum-seekers that could rival that of 2015.

Following a trip last week to Turkey and Greece, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer told the Bild newspaper Sunday “we need to do more to help our European partners with the controls on the EU’s external borders.”

He says “if we don’t do that, we will experience a surge of refugees like 2015, perhaps even bigger.” Germany alone took in 890,000 migrants in 2015.

The comments come ahead of meetings Tuesday with EU interior ministers on the issue.

Seehofer also tells the Welt newspaper that Europe needs to do more to help Turkey in dealing with millions of Syrian refugees.

The Associated Press