The political symposium is taking place from Sunday to Tuesday, and in its introduction Presidents Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic of Croatia, Borut Pahor of Slovenia and Heinz Fischer of Austria spoke about Europe's future as part of the main theme of this year's forum -- inequality.
The Croatian president underscored that the refugee crisis faced by European countries was just a beginning as millions of migrants were waiting at Europe's gates.
Europe should not discuss only the number of immigrants each country will take in, but should go deeper to address the roots of the crisis, Grabar-Kitarovic said. While in the countries from which refugees are coming efforts should concentrate on education, establishment of peace and stability, democracy and eradication of terrorism, Europe should put emphasis on solidarity and cooperation, she added.
Pahor said that a durable solution could be achieved only if the situation changed in the countries refugees were coming from. However, since the European Union cannot stop the war on its own, we should now open the gates and offer the refugees a better life, he added, stressing that it was crucial not to respond to the crisis by repression. We have no right to build walls, he stressed.
Speaking of quotas for the distribution of migrants across the EU, Pahor said that they were not "black and white" and that this was better than if every country could decide on its own. He stressed that the EU countries had made a big mistake in June when they refused the European Commission's proposal for quotas.
Grabar-Kitarovic also spoke in favour of fairly sharing the burden of refugees, stressing that it was better for the countries to decide by themselves how many refugees they could take in.
Fischer said he was also in favour of the burden of migrants being fairly distributed among the EU member states. He said that new tragedies were happening as the wave of refugees had increased in recent weeks, as a result of which public sentiment in Austria had also changed. Those who want to close the door have become quiet and those advocating solidarity and humaneness have grown stronger, he said.
The Austrian president said that his country had 28,000 asylum seekers last year and expected up to 80,000 this year. It is our obligation to treat the refugees with dignity, he underscored.
Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said that it was "shocking and unacceptable" that 71 migrants had been found dead in a truck abandoned by a motorway in Austria, "the heart of Europe". He called for a joint response to the refugee crisis, criticising the fact that not a single EU-level meeting had been held on the matter.
After attending the forum, the three presidents held an informal trilateral meeting, and Pahor and Grabar-Kitarovic were due to meet again at the Bled Strategic Forum on Monday.