European Commissioners on
Wednesday approved a proposal to introduce an emergency
mechanism to relocate 40,000 migrants within the EU over the
next 24 months, 24,000 from Italy and 16,000 from Greece,
European sources said.
The emergency mechanism will only apply to Syrians and
Eritreans who arrived in the two countries after April 15 of
this year, the European Commission (EC) said in a proposal
approved Wednesday.
Syrians and Eritreans were chosen because those
nationalities have an average EU recognition rate for
international protection that is equal to or above 75%,
according to the latest available EU-wide Eurostat data.
The EU budget will provide an extra 240 million in
dedicated funding to support the 24-month scheme.
Moreover, an EC note explained that the EU resettlement
scheme will grant 20,000 places to people in clear need of
international protection outside of the EU.
The note did not clarify where the people to be resettled
will be drawn from. However, European Migration and Home Affairs
Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said Wednesday that an office
would be created in Niger to assess asylum requests on the
ground in that country.
''It is an experimental project. If it works, we will do it
also in other countries,'' said Avramopoulos.
Commenting on how the number of 40,000 emergency migrant
relocations had been established, Avramopolous said that ''fewer
(than 40,000) would not have helped Italy and Greece; more would
not have been accepted by the other EU countries''.
In 2014, Italy saw 277% more irregular border crossings
than in 2013, or 60% of the total number of irregular border
crossings in the EU, the EC said in a note.
Irregular border crossings in Greece soared 153% in 2014
compared to 2013, registering 19% of the EU's overall total, the
EC added.
Unprecedented flows of migrants have continued reach
Italian and Greek shores in 2015.
The EC proposal also outlines an action plan to fight
migrant smugglers, guidelines on systematic fingerprinting of
new arrivals, and an ''information note'' on the
Frontex-coordinated border surveillance operation Triton.
Avramopoulos said the new operational plan for Triton will
''include the area of the former Italian Mare Nostrum
operation'' and have the goal of
saving lives as well as monitoring EU borders.
Mare Nostrum was set up to prevent further deaths at sea
following two migrant ship disasters in October 2013 in which at
least 400 people died, but in November 2014 was replaced by
Operation Triton, run by the European border control agency
Frontex.
Triton was set up as a monitoring operation, with neither
the mandate nor the capacity to carry out rescue operations on
the scale of Mare Nostrum prior to the current EC proposal.
The EC proposal will be put to EU leaders, who have been
increasingly split on the re-allocation of migrant quotas after
an initial apparent agreement.
A majority in the European Parliament has previously voted
in favour, but about 10 European governments have said they are
opposed and Spain and France have expressed reservations.
The United Kingdom and Ireland have 'opt-in' rights under
the Treaties governing the proposal, meaning they only
participate if they so choose, while Denmark has an 'opt-out'
right, meaning it will not participate, according to the EC's
note.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on Wednesday
told Federica Mogherini, the EU High Representative for Foreign
Affairs and Security, that he ''welcomed the European
Commission's proposal for the redistribution of 40,000 asylum
seekers, stressing that it is a step in the right direction'' in
a meeting in Brussels between the two leaders.
Sources close to the high representative added that the UN
head also ''expressed hope that the proposal will be accepted by
EU member states''.
The key tests will be the June 15 council of EU interior
ministers and the June 26 summit of European leaders.
A centre-right Italian senator, belonging to the opposition
party Forza Italia (FI), on Wednesday slammed the EU agenda on
immigration as a ''failure'' and ''humiliation'' for the current
Italian government.
Maurizio Gasparri complained that the EU plan ''says
nothing about the overwhelming majority of clandestine
immigrants that have arrived and continue to arrive in Italy''.
Gasparri is in favour of the destruction of boats and
rescue operations conducted directly in Libya, where many of the
boats leave.
Gasparri warned that Italian cities were at risk of
''social revolt''.
Anti-immigrant constituents in Italy on Wednesday posted on
the Internet a list of suppliers assisting Italy's CIE immigrant
holding centres in order to ''take the fight against the centres
also outside of those walls,'' the posting said.
A Chamber MP belonging to the anti-establishment Five-Star
Movement, Marialucia Lorefice, on Wednesday denounced one
immigrant reception centre, the Cara di Mineo, located in
Sicily, as ''an open-air prison''. She said 4,202 immigrants out
of 18,000 processed there had ''fled''. She added that it
houses "a veritable black market with illicit stalls and
bazaars" and that the state should intervene.
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