Greece proposes suspending asylum requests in emergencies

Greece urged the European Union on Thursday to allow member states to temporarily suspend asylum applications during major migration flows, arguing that

current rules are inadequate to handle mass arrivals as in Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta this summer.



The proposal, submitted to EU interior ministers meeting in Luxembourg during the Justice and Home Affairs Council, appeared to garner support from some member states.



"We have to find a legal way not to bring them into the asylum procedure," said Dutch Migration Minister Bart van den Brink. "In situations like Ceuta, it should be treated as a border management issue rather than an asylum issue."



Anti-immigration sentiment has remained a potent political force across Europe since more than 1 million people, many of them Syrians fleeing war, arrived in the bloc in 2015.