Tusk: EU migration critics guilty of 'hypocrisy'

EU Council head Donald Tusk i has said states which don't take refugees, but still criticise EU migration policy, are guilty of "hypocrisy".

Speaking at the UN assembly in New York on Tuesday (29 September), he said: "Many countries represented here deal with this problem in a much more simple way; namely by not allowing migrants and refugees to enter their territories at all".

"This is why suggesting that Europe is an example of poor treatment or indifference towards asylum-seekers is sheer hypocrisy".

He did not name and shame other UN members.

But his comments come amid wider criticism that rich Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia, have done nothing to help Syrians fleeing war.

He noted that wealth isn't the only pull factor for Europe, however.

"Wealth is not the only element that determines where people choose the future for their children; such values like tolerance, openness, respect for diversity, freedom, human rights and the Geneva Convention are also a magnet attracting them to us".

The international criticism of Europe is based, in part, on its internal divisions on the crisis.

The same day, Italian PM Matteo Renzi, speaking to the Wall Street Journal, took a swipe at Baltic States which take EU development funds but resist migrant quotas.

"If you think about single member states who won't accept 300 people after all the euros [they got from the EU] to save their countries, I think this is immoral", he said.

The Hungarian PM, Viktor Orban i, also in the Wall Street Journal, echoed Tusk.

"The US and other countries, and even the rich Arab countries should take some [refugees] because Europe cannot handle [them all]", he warned.

He also spoke of "hypocrisy", but aimed his barb at EU states such as France and Spain, which have built anti-migrant fences, but which criticise Hungary's recently-constructed razor-wire barriers.

"That's clear evidence of hypocrisy in European politics … our wall is the number five wall", he noted.

But for his part, Zoran Milanovic i, the Croatian PM, speaking to press in Europe, said Hungary's border clampdown "is totally unacceptable from the human point of view".

Germany - the most migrant-friendly EU country to date - has also begun to restrict entry.

Chancellor Angela Merkel i's cabinet, on Tuesday, approved a new law to automatically expel asylum seekers from Albania, Kosovo, and Montenegro.

It expects up to 1 million claimants this year, some 40 percent of whom come from the Western Balkans.

The International Organization for Migration i (IOM) said on Tuesday that 522,124 people have come to Europe by sea so far this year.

It said 388,000 people, 175,000 of whom came from Syria, travelled via Turkey to Greece.

The rest, some 131,000, came from north Africa to Italy.

It added that 2,890 people have drowned trying to make the crossings - a conservative estimate, based only on the bodies which EU coastguards and other vessels recovered at sea.