Finland Times

Orpo made the remarks after he met with the European commissioner for migration, home affairs and citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos in Helsinki to discuss the refugee crisis, Finnish news agency STT reported.

The Finnish minister said at a press conference held after the meeting that Finland wanted the EU to have a feasible system that should be a clearly defined political body which would be responsible for examining asylum applications.

"People arriving in a country must be identified and registered, and repatriations to third countries should work," said Orpo.

He emphasized that it was also extremely important to successfully handle the situation at the external borders of the EU.

The EU commissioner admitted that the current system was inactive, as he had observed the terrible refugee situation at the Idomeni camp on the border between Greece and Macedonia.

According to Avramopoulos, the European Commission is to issue a proposal to amend the Dublin Regulation as early as next month.

Avramopoulos said European countries should not build more fences along their borders, but rather dismantle them.

According to the UN Refugee Agency, in 2015, more than one million asylum seekers crossed the Mediterranean into Europe. So far this year, more than 130,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean, the vast majority of them arriving in Greece.

Currently, refugees arriving along the Western Balkans route have found their way to western and northern Europe blocked, as some countries along the route have imposed tougher border restrictions. However, migrants are still flooding into Greece from Turkey.