Practises of restricting entry we have been witnessing are crumbling the European asylum system and denying the people in need their right of protection. As scientists specialising in migration are pointing out in the European Call for Protection of Refugees, international and humanitarian law, human rights and common EU legislation, and especially the Common European Asylum System, mandates the EU as a whole, as well as her member states, to offer protection and shelter to all those who are fleeing their countries. Unsustainable policies of directing refugees exclusively to Austria and Germany have now started creating counter effects, which is why it is high time for all the countries to get involved into resolving this humanitarian crisis and offer support to people who are seeking protection. Austria, Slovenia and Croatia, as EU member states, need to stand up in solidarity and accept refugees, as well as those in search for temporary protection, who are coming from war torn countries in large numbers (like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan), while all the others, seeking protection for other reasons stated in the Geneva convention, need to have access to the process of international protection. Welcome! Initiative reminds that the agreement on the transportation of refugees directly from Macedonia can be a good approach for persons directly threatened by war, but the individuals who seek international protection for other reasons, such as political persecution, at the moment do not have access to the system of international protection. The process of asking for international protection is on an individual basis and every person in need of seeking protection must have access to it, and his/her destiny cannot be arbitrarily judged on through the discriminatory system of racial profiling.  

In context of daily returns of refugees from the EU borders, while witnessing wires and at least 3700 deaths at sea in only one year, while listening on the needs to defend EU borders against the so called “fake migrants” and spending billions of euros for equipping and protection of these very borders, while Denmark and Sweden pass laws on confiscation of refugees’ valuable possessions, with Germany speeding up deportation processes, over 100 000 people is waiting in fear on the borders of Syria and Turkey. Welcome! Initiative believes it is necessary to turn to solidarity proclaimed so strongly by Europe, because a continent of 500 million citizens can and must accept 2 million refugees.