EU nations on Med coast renew push for migrant quotas

BRUSSELS — Four European Union countries hundreds of thousands of unauthorized migrants have entered over the past five years have expressed concern new proposals to revamp the EU’s asylum system will continue to leave them to cope with the challenge alone.

Greece, Italy, Malta and Spain said in a joint paper mandatory quotas for sharing out people who qualify for refugee status among the 27 EU countries must be pursued. Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, among others, reject such a move. The standoff could further delay the asylum reform plans.

“The front- line member states cannot face the migratory pressure on the whole European Union,” the four countries said in a text sent to the European Commission, which drew up the asylum plans, the EU Council representing member countries and Germany, which holds the bloc’s presidency.

The entry in 2015 of well over one million migrants, mostly people fleeing conflict in Syria, sounded the death knell for the EU’s asylum system, and sparked a deep political crisis that continues to echo even though entries have dropped to a relative trickle.

The row over who should take responsibility for people when they arrive and how much other EU countries should assist has helped fuel public support for far-right parties across the bloc. Populist governments in Hungary and Poland, notably, challenged a previous system of migrant quotas at Europe’s top court.