‘Take in migrants or face a legal action’

3 dead after boat sinks

BRUSSELS, April 12, (RTRS): The European Union’s executive stepped up pressure on Poland and Hungary on Wednesday to take in asylum seekers under the bloc’s migration plan or risk legal action if their reluctant governments refuse.

Warsaw and Budapest have stonewalled the scheme to move 160,000 people from Italy and Greece – the main ports of arrival – to elsewhere in the EU. Other member states have also dragged their feet, leaving the divisive plan stalled.

The eurosceptic governments in Poland and Hungary have also put their media and judiciary under tighter state control, raising concerns in Brussels and other EU capitals that they are infringing on the bloc’s democratic checks and balances.

The influx of some 1.6 million refugees and migrants into the EU in 2014-2016 has led to rows on how to share the burden among member states. Only about 16,340 people have been moved so far under the emergency scheme that ends in September.

“If Member States do not increase their relocations soon, the Commission will not hesitate to make use of its powers ... for those which have not complied,” the bloc’s executive arm said in a statement.

The Commission had proposed to fine member states for failing to take in migrants, but there has been little political backing for such a step. A court case would not resolve the issue quickly, but could add to mounting pressure for action from other EU states.

Italy has been in the forefront of calling for cuts to EU subsidies to Poland and Hungary over migration. Germany, Sweden, Austria and France – the most frequent final destinations – have also been stepping up pressure on the hold-outs.

Orban

Weak

Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have taken in only a few asylum seekers and the European Commission also underlined their weak response to the plan.

EU officials are split over whether to open legal proceedings over relocation, with some noting Poland and Hungary should be punished for undermining the bloc’s solidarity.

Others say that such so-called “infringements” would have to be launched against just about every EU state since so many cut corners on various agreements.

Hungary has filed its own lawsuit against the relocation scheme, which assigns each EU state a specific number of asylum seekers to receive. A hearing at the EU’s top European Court of Justice is due on May 10.

Poland’s and Hungary’s disputes over migration with the bloc are just one area on which the two postcommunist countries, now governed by eurosceptics, clash with Brussels and the wealthier western European states.

The bloc has voiced concern over the weakening of the rule of law and undermining of democratic standards by both Budapest under Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Warsaw under the right-wing government of the Law and Justice (PiS) party.

The Commission on Wednesday separately warned Hungary it risked being sued in court over a number of Orban’s policies.

Meanwhile, three migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were killed when their boat capsized in the Mediterranean but the Spanish navy managed to rescue another 30 people in the group, a coast guard spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

The navy went to rescue the migrants after their dinghy sank on Tuesday near the island of Alboran, halfway between Spain’s southern coast and its North African enclave of Melilla.

A 10 year-old girl and an older woman died on Tuesday, and police divers found the body of a man, whose age is unknown, near the scene of the sinking on Wednesday morning.

“They are from sub-Saharan Africa, but we do not know which country,” the spokeswoman said.

Survivors

Another woman was airlifted to hospital in the southern coastal town of Almeria, where the survivors arrived late on Tuesday.

In related news, Italy’s parliament approved on Tuesday measures to accelerate asylum procedures, cutting the number of possible appeals and speeding up deportations of rejected migrants.

Since 2014 the number of migrants reaching Italy’s shores has surged, with half a million arriving in the country, and under European Union law Italy has to set up so-called “hotspots” where migrants with the right of asylum are set apart from those without.

As a result, Italy’s asylum applications have jumped, burdening the national civil courts and with procedures further delayed by appeals that can take years.

Under the new rules the asylum ruling can be appealed only once, instead of twice, and the request has to be submitted within a month.

The law, named after Interior Minister Marco Minniti and Justice Minister Andrea Orlando, also creates 26 new sections in courts across the country, specialised in immigration.

It enables the Interior ministry to employ up to 250 people in the next two years to work in specialised state-run committees dealing with the asylum request.

Rights group Amnesty International said on Tuesday it was worried for the “significant reduction in the procedural gurantees for the asylum seekers” claiming that the new procedures could be unconstitutional and discriminatory.

“Faster decision are in the interest of those requesting asylum but they must not lead to a limitation of (the migrants’) rights,” the head of Amnesty International in Italy Antonio Marchesi said in a statement.

The new rules had already been adopted by Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni’s government at the beginning of February with an emergency decree on the grounds that the court backlog was stacking up quickly and asylum-seeker shelters were filling up.

Under Italian law, emergency decrees have to be converted into law by parliament within 60 days.

Italy has estimated that it will spend about 3.9 billion euros ($4.1 billion) this year on managing immigration, almost three times as much as in 2013. The annual bill could rise to 4.3 billion euros if arrivals increase, the equivalent to a quarter of the country’s annual spending on defence.