xi's moments
Home | Europe

EU ponders coordinated migrant policy

By EARLE GALE | China Daily Global | Updated: 2020-09-25 10:52

Unaccompanied children from overcrowded migrant camps who will be transferred to Germany, wear protective face masks as a precaution against the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as they arrive to board a plane at the Athens International Airport, Greece, April 18, 2020. [Photo/Agencies]

The European Union has called on its 27 members to support a German-led proposal to deal with the flood of people entering the bloc without invitation, a plan that could be in place by next summer.

Ursula von der Leyen, head of the EU's executive branch, the European Commission, described the proposal as a "European solution... to restore citizens' confidence".

Von der Leyen, who was a member of Angela Merkel's German government between 2005 and 2019, said a compulsory system for all EU nations was the best way to manage migration.

The proposal, which will be debated later this year, calls for member states to either house asylum-seekers and migrants or handle the sending back of those refused sanctuary.

Merkel said the plan would ensure a "fair sharing of responsibility and solidarity between member states while providing certainty for individual applicants".

The plan follows four years of mass unplanned migration into the EU that started with 1.8 million "irregular arrivals" in 2015. Some nations, including Greece, Italy, and Spain, have housed vast new populations while others, especially those in Central and Eastern Europe, have refused to help.

The proposal includes compulsory pre-entry screening, to establish the health, identity, and security risk of applicants, and it promises a faster processing of applications for asylum, with decisions made within 12 weeks and those who fail being sent home soon after. The plan also calls for nations to be paid 10,000 euros ($11,700) for each refugee or asylum-seeker accepted who was rescued from the Mediterranean Sea.

EU member states would contribute toward the huge cost of looking after migrants, proportionally to their GDP.

The BBC quoted Ylva Johansson, the EU's home affairs commissioner, as saying the proposal is a compromise that attempts to cover nations that want to help more people and those that want to accept no migrants. She acknowledged it is, therefore, likely not what any individual member-nation wants.

But, she said: "I think we would have 27 member states and Parliament that would say it's worth working on this."

The proposals have, however, failed to impress charities including Save the Children and Amnesty International. Save the Children described them as an example of the EU failing to learn "from its recent mistakes", while Amnesty International said they are "designed to heighten walls and strengthen fences".

Marissa Ryan, head of Oxfam's EU office, told the Guardian newspaper: "The commission has bowed to pressure from EU governments whose only objective is to decrease the number of people granted protection in Europe."

The paper noted that the proposed changes to the bloc's asylum and migration rules have been four years in the making and were held up earlier this year by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Global Edition
BACK TO THE TOP
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349