EU postpones action on migrant crisis

At a summit in June EU leaders called for an agreement to be finalised by the end of July but after yesterday’s meeting EU home affairs ministers could only agree to commit to the relocation of 32,256 Syrians, Eritreans, Iraqis and Somalis beginning in October.

“Austria has become the first target country and deals with 10 times more asylum seekers’ application than Greece and Italy put together and this can not be right”.

EU home affairs commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos told reporters: “We are nearly there”.

Several Eastern European governments have complained that they would be flooded with refugees under the proposal and refused to accept their share of the 40,000 migrants proposed by the EU Commission.

“I’m disappointed this did not happen today, but it was a very important step forward”, he added.

While they decided in principle to resettle 40,000 asylum- seekers who have fled to Italy and Greece, the leaders opted against obligatory quotas for each European nation and fell short of agreeing on a voluntary distribution system. So far the EU states have only agreed on relocating 32 thousand of these asylum seekers.

Earlier this month, the UN said some 137,000 people had arrived in Greece, Italy, Spain and Malta alone, with many more coming by land across the Balkans.

Hungary has received the EU’s highest number of asylum applications in the first quarter of 2015, according to European Union data, and has started building a security fence along its border with Serbia to keep illegal migrants out.

A deal is critical as the EU also needs to turn its attention to the growing numbers of asylum seekers crossing the Balkan peninsula to reach Central Europe.

Poland has committed to take in just 1,000, falling short of the EU Commission’s requests of more than 2,500. But other countries as well committed to taking fewer migrants than the EU had requested, or not committing at all, one diplomat said.

Hungary refused to admit both migrants seeking asylum and refugees who had already been approved for asylum, according to EU figures. Putting the number of Greece’s refugees – mostly from war-torn states like Syria and Iraq – at 70,000, Turk warned that the debt-wracked nation’s asylum system has reached its limit.

The ministers also agreed to relocate 22,504 Syrian refugees now living in camps outside the EU – actually exceeding their target for refugees of 20,000.

In exchange for taking in more refugees, the Commission blueprint involves stricter identification of migrants arriving in Italy and Greece, and streamlined procedures to send home those who can not claim global protection.