Politics this week

With strong support from Germany and France, and opposition from east European governments, the European Commission proposed a mandatory quota system that distributes refugees among the EU’s member states. An initial intake will number 160,000 though the figure is expected to rise. Refugees from Africa and the Middle East continued to enter the borderless Schengen area of the EU in ever greater numbers, appearing at times to overwhelm officials and security forces in countries from Hungary to Denmark. Train services frequented by refugees have been shut down selectively, but those who reached Germany received a warm welcome. See here and here.