Britain’s home Secretary Theresa May has said that only European migrants with jobs lined up should be allowed in to the UK.
Mrs May claimed that the principle of free movement within the EU is putting pressure on public services and infrastructure, adding that the events of this summer, which has seen hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees risking their lives to reach Europe, should act as “wake-up call” to EU leaders.
Her comments came as a fifth man suspected of being involved in the deaths of 71 migrants found in a truck in neighbouring Austria has been detained by Hungarian police.
A police spokesperson said the Bulgarian national was arrested on Saturday evening. Police said they will seek to have him held in custody on suspicion of human trafficking.
On Saturday, a court in the central city of Kecskemet – from where prosecutors say the truck departed – placed four other suspects under preliminary arrest pending possible indictment.
The men, three Bulgarians and an Afghan, were arrested on Thursday in southern Hungary.
The truck carrying 59 men, eight women and four children, including a baby, was discovered parked along the Budapest-to-Vienna highway on Thursday.
Austrian experts are performing autopsies on the victims who are believed to have suffocated.
Earlier this week official data showed net migration in to Britain had reached a record high, hitting 330,000 in the year to March.
Mrs May, above, said the figure was “far too high” and “simply unsustainable”.
“When it was first enshrined, free movement meant the freedom to move to a job, not the freedom to cross borders to look for work or claim benefits.
“Yet last year, four out of 10 EU migrants, 63,000 people, came here with no definite job whatsoever.”
Earlier this month Mrs May visited Calais to inspect new security measures preventing migrants from reaching England via the Channel Tunnel.
She also blamed the “European system of no borders” for exacerbating the migration crisis which has dominated Europe this summer.
“This is a wake-up call for the EU. Its leaders must consider the consequences of uncontrolled migration – on wages, jobs and social cohesion of the destination nations; on the economies and societies of the rest; and on the lives and welfare of those who seek to come here,” she said.
“If we want to control immigration – and bring it down to the tens of thousands – we must take some big decisions, face down powerful interests and reinstate the original principle underlying free movement within the EU.”
Unprecedented numbers of migrants are reaching EU borders, surpassing 100,000 in July alone and reaching more than 340,000 this year so far.
Italy and Greece are struggling to cope with the daily influx of refugees, while Macedonia has declared a state of emergency.
