Fabius promises to speed up acceptance of Syrian refugees

Amid growing calls that the European Union move quickly to accept more refugees from the Syrian conflict, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius promised Monday to speed up administrative procedures for granting asylum to Syrians. France has accepted a relatively low number of refugees but this is because requests are not as high as for Germany, which is promising to take in around 10,000 Syrians, about triple the number in France. Other northern European countries like Sweden are also attracting more refugees. Fabius told "RTL" radio that France "is taking in fewer (refugees) than countries like Denmark and Sweden." But he said he had "given instructions" so that cases of asylum request should be handled more quickly. French officials said separately that once requests are in, they are generally accepted with a 95 percent positive response rate to Syrian demands. Fabius said in the interview that he would be contacting the migration services in France so that there are more refugees accepted. Since the conflict erupted in Syria in March 2011, an estimated 2.5 million Syrians have fled their country and most are in camps or with relatives in Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Iraq. But conditions are extremely harsh and there are efforts to find asylum for some and ease the pressure. Nonetheless, the response in the EU has been poor on this issue and only half of the European nations have accepted any Syrian refugees and the total number being taken in is only a drop in the ocean compared to what is needed. Over 130,000 Syrians, mostly civilians, have died since the start of the conflict and an estimated five-to-six million are internally displaced.