French President Emmanuel Macron has said he favoured financial sanctions against countries who refuse to share the burden in Europe’s refugee crisis, Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported on Sunday.

Macron said: “I am in favour of mechanisms that encompass [sanctions],” adding that member countries were in no position to benefit from the EU’s cohesion policy while at the same time manifesting “national egoism” on the issue of refugees, IAR reported.

In September 2015, EU leaders agreed that each country in the bloc would accept a number of migrants over two years to alleviate the pressure on Greece and Italy, which have seen waves of migrants arriving from the Middle East and Africa.

EU leaders agreed to relocate about 160,000 of a total of more than 2 million migrants who arrived in Europe since 2015.

Poland’s previous government led by the Civic Platform (PO) party agreed to take in over 6,000 people.

But after coming to power in October 2015, Poland's conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government staunchly opposed the arrangement.

(aba)

Source: IAR