UN calls on EU to take 200,000 refugees

UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres has called today for the EU to admit up to 200,000 refugees as part of a "mass relocation programme" that would be binding on EU states.

"People who are found to have a valid protection claim... must then benefit from a mass relocation programme, with the mandatory participation of all EU member states," Guterres said in a statement.

EU foreign ministers are scheduled to meet later today to discuss the refugee crisis. 

"Europe cannot go on responding to this crisis with a piecemeal or incremental approach," Guterres said. "No country can do it alone, and no country can refuse to do its part."

His appeal tallied with a call by France and Germany for binding EU quotas to share the burden of the influx of migrants and refugees, which has hit Greece, Italy and transit countries in southeastern and central Europe the hardest.