Responding to the European Commission forecast that up to three million more people could arrive in the EU by the end of next year, Timothy Kirkhope MEP, Conservative home affairs spokesman, said:

“Year on year the EU is seeing huge increases in migrants arriving. If numbers are set to increase on this scale, there needs to be an understanding by EU leaders that Europe alone cannot solve a migrant crisis of this scale.

“This is a global crisis which requires a global response. No amount of EU quotas or new forms of legal migration will be the solution, and it is disingenuous of EU leaders to pretend otherwise. The EU needs to work with international partners to find solutions. The Valletta summit and the informal council next week need to face reality and put in place the preparations that will be necessary to prevent the kind of knee-jerk, reactionary approach that has so far characterised our response to this growing crisis.

“The EU needs to put in place the facilities and resources to process and return failed asylum seekers quickly, to focus on improving external border controls, and to help those communities with integration which are placed under pressure both in transit countries and in destination countries. We need to get the basics right in Europe, otherwise we will simply not be able to cope with the numbers of people that are coming.

“Most importantly, the EU needs to start sending a clear and unified signal that not everybody who wants to leave the region will be granted a home in Europe. Only the most vulnerable will be able to remain, which was always the intention of international humanitarian law.”