EU unveils proposal for refugee quota

ASKS STATES TO ADMIT 40,000 MIGRANTS AS ITALY AND GREECE STRUGGLE TO COPE

The European Union yesterday asked its member states to admit 40,000 asylum seekers from Syria and Eritrea landing in Italy and Greece, which have been overstretched by an influx of migrants.

The emergency proposal, which comes atop another one to resettle in member states some 20,000 refugees who are outside Europe, is in response to a surge in migrants making the dangerous crossing over the Mediterranean.

Both Rome and Athens, which are struggling with the wave of migrants, appealed to the 26 other EU states to share the burden.

“We ... have a proposal for an emergency mechanism to relocate 40,000 asylum seekers to other European [member] states,” EU migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos told a press conference.

“Syrians and Eritreans will be relocated from Italy and Greece to other European Union member states over a period of two years,” he said.

The measure concerns people arriving in those countries after April 15 this year, the commissioner said.

The proposal suggests migrants be distributed according to four criteria: gross national product, population, unemployment and the number of asylum requests already registered in the country.

Resettlement plan

Repeating an earlier proposal, Avramopoulos said the European Union is also asking member states to admit 20,000 people from third countries who have “a clear need for international protection”.

“They will be resettled from countries outside Europe to European Union member states.”

However, EU states Britain, Ireland and Denmark can opt out of both schemes under existing EU treaties, according to EU officials.

Avramopoulos insisted that the European Commission, the executive arm of the 28-nation EU, was not proposing a quota system for distributing people.

“It’s up to each member to decide how many refugees they will grant refugee status [to],” he added. “If countries want to relocate or settle more, they can, but we want to insure minimum solidarity,” Avramopoulos said.

However, EU sources said, countries must first admit the 40,000 asylum seekers based on a “distribution key,” which looks like a quota. It opens a breach in the Dublin rules that require the country where asylum seekers first land to take them in.

The task is bound to be particularly difficult because Britain, Hungary, the Baltic states, the Czech Republic and Poland oppose mandatory relocation based on a redistribution “key” system.