BERLIN, July 19 (Xinhua) -- Ursula von der Leyen who has been elected to be the next president of the European Commission, told Germany's biggest newspaper on Friday, "We must reform Dublin to achieve greater fairness and burden-sharing."
Von der Leyen said that she had "never really understood" the logic behind the Dublin Regulation which came into effect in 1997 but has moved to the center of EU politics with a rising number of refugees.
Europe's Dublin Regulation is assigning responsibility for the asylum procedure to the state which the asylum seeker demonstrably first entered.
In the interest of fairness and solidarity in Europe, "we can only have secure external borders if we give sufficient help to those member states that are under the greatest pressure because of their position on the map", von der Leyen told Bild.
It was important to "de-emotionalize" the whole issue of refugees. Von der Leyen asked all involved to "stop pointing the finger, work very pragmatically, find solutions that are not too far away, but are easy to reach".
However, von der Leyen acknowledged that "migration is a long-term challenge and there is no easy answer", calling for heavy investments in the countries of origin as well as fighting terrorism and poverty.
Additionally, she committed to "hunt down traffickers and smugglers who endanger refugees in order to make huge profits" as well as to secure Europe's border with the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex).
"We must interrupt and dismantle the business models of unscrupulous traffickers. They should never decide a person's fate or who comes to the European Union", von der Leyen told Bild.
