The sudden onset of fall weather in Greece, with thunderstorms and torrential rain over the past two days, has sent hundreds of migrants who had been camping out in a downtown Athens square scrambling for shelter. About 100 men, women and children found dry spaces in the Victoria Square metro station Tuesday, while another roughly 400 people, mostly Afghans, remained in the square, huddling in tents or using rubbish bin liners and plastic bags to keep off the worst of the rain. Hungary's foreign minister says political relations with fellow European Union neighbor Croatia are at a "freezing point" and may improve only after parliamentary elections there expected by the end of the year. Szijjarto says while Hungary had done everything possible to register 230,000 migrants this year, it had failed in some cases because of the aggressive behavior of some migrants and EU rules making it hard to enforce registration. Norway's Justice Minister has asked the country's police to "intensify" border controls to "prevent illegal immigration and combat organized crime." In recent weeks, some 2,000 people have sought asylum in Norway which is not an European Union member, but is part of the Schengen agreement allowing travel without internal border checks in Europe. Denmark's intelligence agency doesn't believe Islamic radicals are trying to use the migration flow and Europe's passport-free Schengen travel zone to smuggle "terrorists" into the West. Serbia's prime minister has given the European Union a deadline to persuade Croatia to resume all cargo traffic that was halted after a surge of migrants over their mutual border or he says that Belgrade will respond with unspecified retaliatory measures. Interior ministers from the 28-member EU will try to resolve the dispute on the emergency relocation of 120,000 asylum-seekers at a meeting Tuesday in Brussels. Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec, who has disputed the legality of the quota system, said at a Prague airport before leaving for Brussels that "it's an empty political gesture." A resolution approved by legislators from Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Fidesz party and its Christian Democrat allies, says Hungary "cannot allow illegal migrants to endanger the workplaces and social security of the Hungarian people." The lawmakers said it was irresponsible for European politicians to encourage migrants to risk death for a better life in Europe and called on EU leaders to "return to the road of common sense" and protect Europe and it citizens. Norway's foreign minister warns that the refugee crisis will continue and could get worse if no political solution is found to end Syria's civil war. Borge Brende told reporters after meeting his Lebanese counterpart Gibran Bassil in Beirut that Norway has an agreement with the U.N. refugee agency to receive "a substantial amount of refugees in the three coming years — in fact 7 percent of all the refugees that the UNHCR has asked for." The OECD called on its 34 member countries, which include the U.S. and most of Europe, to "constantly" adjust immigration policies to take into account shifts such as war in Syria and political collapse in Libya, which have driven many people to seek refuge in Europe.
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