Migrants resettlement in peril

Proposal called for placing 40,000 around EU nations

BRUSSELS // European Union (EU) ministers failed to agree yesterday on how to redistribute 40,000 Syrian and Eritrean migrants from overstretched Italy and Greece, officials said.

They agreed to start relocating more than 32,000 around the 28- nation EU, but fell 8,000 short of their overall target agreed by EU leaders at a bad-tempered summit in June.

“We have a solution for relocation in this year. For next year we are not yet exactly there. We will talk about this in October or November,” German secretary of state Emily Haber said. The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, originally proposed the 40,000 figure after a migrant shipwreck in the Mediterranean in April that left nearly 800 dead. EU leaders then agreed on the figure last month but have been bitterly divided over how to reach it. They first rejected compulsory quotas and then squabbled with each other over how to redistribute them. Luxembourg, which holds the rotating six- month EU presidency, said the ministers agreed to relocate 32,256 Syrians and Eritreans who had landed in Greece and Italy.

It was also agreed to relocate 22,504 Syrian refugees currently living in camps outside the EU. More than 1,900 migrants have died this year making the journey across the Mediterranean to Europe, while about 150,000 have made the crossing, the International Organisation for Migration said. France and Germany agreed this month to accept about 21,000 refugees and asylum seekers as part of EU efforts to deal with the flood of migrants seeking refuge from conflicts and poverty.

EU sources said the countries that were most reluctant to admit migrants were Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Baltic countries and Spain.