Austria said Sunday it planned to phase out emergency measures that have allowed thousands of refugees stranded against their will for days in Hungary to stream into Austria and Germany since Saturday morning, as the Pope urged each European parish to take in a refugee family. Many are fleeing war in the Middle East and hope to take refuge in Germany, Europe's richest country, but the EU is divided over how to cope with the influx which has provoked both sympathy and anti-Muslim resentment among Europeans. Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said the decision, a day after the measures were put in place, followed "intensive talks" with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and a telephone call with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. "We have always said this is an emergency situation in which we must act quickly and humanely. We have helped more than 12,000 people in an acute situation," he said. "Now we have to move step-by-step away from emergency measures toward normality, in conformity with the law and dignity." Thousands of migrants and refugees arrived at Budapest's Keleti train station after traveling from Syria through the Balkans and Greece. Hungary laid on over 100 buses to the border Saturday night after Austria said it had agreed steps with Germany to waive the normal rules requiring refugees to apply for asylum wherever they enter the EU. Others set off from the station to make the 170-km journey on foot. The platforms filled up again Sunday. Germany has said it expects 800,000 refugees and migrants this year and urged EU members to open their doors. But others say the focus should be on tackling the violence in the Middle East that has caused so many to flee. "When rich Europe argues and tears itself apart over whether to accept 1,000, 10,000, 42,000 or 100,000 refugees, when Turkey already has 2 million, it is clear that we have a problem of perspective and identity," EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. "This crisis can help us come out with a stronger vision of what it means to be the European Union." A dozen or so well-wishers offering chocolate and bananas greeted between 600 and 700 people, mostly Syrians, arriving on two early morning trains in Munich, the state capital of Bavaria. A total of 6,800 entered Germany Saturday with another 5,000 expected Sunday, Bavarian state officials said. Merkel's decision to allow the influx has caused a rift in her conservative bloc, with her Bavarian allies accusing her of having pushed forward without asking the federal states dealing with the influx. French far-right leader Marine Le Pen accused Germany of looking to lower wages and hire "slaves" by opening its doors. "I appeal to the parishes, the religious communities, the monasteries and sanctuaries of all Europe to ... take in one family of refugees," Pope Francis said after his Sunday address in the papal enclave. The crowd in St. Peter's Square applauded as the pontiff said: "Every parish, every religious community, every monastery, every sanctuary of Europe, take in one family." In a separate message Sunday, the pope, himself the grandson of Italian emigrants to Argentina, made an apparent criticism of a wall Hungary is building at the EU's border. "It is violence to build walls and barriers to stop those who look for a place of peace. It is violence to push back those who flee inhuman conditions in the hope of a better future," he said in a letter to a church association meeting in Albania. The Vatican's two parishes will take in a family of refugees each in the coming days, said Francis, whose first trip after his election in 2013 was to the Italian island of Lampedusa, halfway between Sicily and Tunisia, where many refugees and migrants arrive by boat. Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipila said over the weekend that he is opening up his spare house to refugees. Sipila said that after some discussions and consultation with local authorities, he and his wife decided to make their house in Kempele, a town of about 17,000 in central Finland, available as of Jan. 1. The Sipilas have not used the house since moving to Helsinki. "We all should think what we can do ourselves," he told Finnish television channel MTV. Israel's prime minister said his country is not indifferent to the plight of migrants and refugees flooding Europe, but that Israel is too vulnerable to absorb them. Benjamin Netanyahu bemoaned the "human tragedy" of the victims of Syria's civil war and said Israel has aided them in various ways. But he added that Israel is too small a country, both geographically and demographically, to provide a haven for a large influx of migrants.
