Migrant resettlement plan is failing, EU official says
ONLY 300 OF PROPOSED 160,000MOVED AHEAD OF RISING OPPOSITION
The European Union’s top migration official said Thursday that the 28-nation bloc’s plan to manage a refugee crisis is not working and failure could have devastating consequences for European unity.
“The situation is getting worse,” Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos told EU lawmakers in Brussels. “These schemes have not delivered the expected results,” he added.
In September, the EU unveiled measures that would distribute settlement of 160,000 refugees across member countries to ease the crushing burden on Greece and Italy, where most arrive after fleeing violence in Syria, Iraq and other conflict zones. Yet fewer than 300 refugees have been sent to other countries under the plan, EU data show.
More than 1million migrants entered Europe in 2015, with the vast majority winding up in Germany, which opened its doors to them last year. However, opposition to taking in migrants has grown since reports of mass assaults on women by recent migrants at New Year’s Eve gatherings.
Avramopoulos said newcomers to Greece and Italy are still not being proc- essed quickly enough, and countries that signed up with the plan had made just a few thousand spaces available. A deal with Turkey — where 2 million Syrians are marooned— to send refugees directly to EU countries also has stalled.
Avramopoulos told the European Parliament that up to 4,000 refugees arrive each day in Greece even though Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Austria have reintroduced border controls. He added that countries are not sending back most migrants who failed to qualify for asylum, which is granted to those fleeing war and persecution.
“Europe will provide protection for those who need it, but those who have no right to be here have to be returned,” Avramopoulos said.
Many of these coming to Europe are seeking better economic opportunities and don’t qualify for protection as refugees under international law. Since September, fewer than 900 have been ejected.
Avramopoulos said that if the situation does not change, the EU’s passportfree travel zone, a fundamental right guaranteed to EU citizens, is at risk of falling apart. If that happens, he said, it would be the “beginning of the end of the European project.”
His comments come amid rising anxiety in Europe about how to settle and integrate the unprecedented flows of displaced people who make dangerous journeys to reach European soil.
Germany, in response to the mass sexual assault on New Year’s Eve in Cologne, moved Wednesday to enact legislation that would make it easier to deport migrants convicted of serious crimes.
Denmark’s parliament will vote this month on whether to seize new arrivals’ cash and other assets that exceed $1,450 to pay for their stays. In Finland, news media reported that a group of anti-immigrant men have started patrolling streets of a town near the border with Sweden to ease fears over the safety of local women.
“Europe will provide protection for those who need it, but those who have no right to be here have to be returned.”
Dimitris Avramopoulos,
European Union migration commissioner