Budapest-Munich train with migrants stopped at border

HUNGARY: A train that left Budapest for Munich at 9.10am Monday morning with migrants on board is standing at the Hungarian-Austrian border at Hegyeshalom waiting for "authorities' action", Hungarian railway operator MAV has said.

Another train bound for Munich left Budapest at 11.10am (local time), with hundreds of migrants aboard.

A Vienna police spokesman said they will check whether the refugees on the train have applied for asylum in Hungary and, if they have, they will not let them continue their travels.

Other migrants on the train, which Austrian Railways said was halted on the Hungarian-Austrian border because of overcrowding, can stay in Austria for two weeks while they decide whether to seek asylum there, the police spokesman said.

Those who do not will be returned to their last transit country.

GREECE: The coastguard has rescued about 2,500 migrants and refugees off the country's eastern islands over the past three days, Greek authorities said on Monday, as the flow of people trying to cross into Europe continued unabated.

Greece has seen a surge in the number of refugees arriving by rubber dinghies from neighbouring Turkey, with aid agencies estimating about 2,000 crossing over daily this month. Most hail from conflict-ridden places such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The numbers of migrants being picked up by the coastguard have been rising steadily over the past week and the figures for the past three days are at the higher end of those seen this summer, a coastguard official said.

All interceptions of migrant boats in Greek waters are classified as coastguard rescues even if the vessels are not in any danger or need any help.

After a hiatus of a few days last week, Greek authorities resumed ferrying Syrian refugees to the mainland by ship on Saturday and the latest group of 2,500 refugees arrived at the port of Piraeus earlier on Monday.

Most of them are expected to make their way to the Macedonian border as part of their journey into northern Europe, suggesting larger crowds could amass at the border in the coming days after numbers shrank last week.

FRANCE: European authorities are giving France an extra €5 million to aid migrants who have clustered in a camp in Calais in the hope of sneaking across the English Channel to Britain.

European Commission vice president Frans Timmermans announced the funding during a visit to Calais with French and EU officials.

He said it is aimed at creating a new camp to offer aid to 1,500 migrants. A few thousand migrants from Sudan, Eritrea and elsewhere are living in unsanitary makeshift conditions at the camp.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Europe’s migrant problem cannot be solved with “barbed wire” alone, and urged more help for migrants with legitimate asylum claims. However, he insisted that economic migrants must be sent home.

GERMANY: Angela Merkel said on Monday that if Europe was not able to agree to a fair distribution of refugees, the passport-free Schengen zone would be called into question.

“If we don’t succeed in fairly distributing refugees then of course the Schengen question will be on the agenda for many,” the German chancellor said at a news conference in Berlin.