15:00 Updated with Commission comments
An EU asylum system overhaul approved by the European Commission today would oblige member states to resettle migrants from countries receiving a ‘disproportionate’ number of applications or else pay a fine of €250,000 for every migrant they refuse.
But the proposals were rejected almost immediately by Poland and Slovakia, with the latter's foreign minister saying the proposal "sets us back nine months and does not respect the reality".
The proposals would assign each member state except for the UK, which has been granted an opt-out, a percentage quota of all asylum seekers in the EU that it would be expected to handle. Quotas would reflect national population and wealth and, if a country found itself handling 50 percent more than its due share, it could relocate people elsewhere in the bloc.
If a member state refused to relocate its allocated share, it would be obliged to pay the overburdened state €250,000 for every migrant it refused.
The “corrective fairness mechanism” would complement the existing Dublin II regulation that requires all migrants arriving on EU soil to remain in the first member state they arrive in. The UK and Ireland are not
Well over a year in the pipeline, the proposed overhaul must be approved by the European Parliament and European Council of Ministers before it comes into effect. The EU's existing system effectively collapsed last year following a mass influx of refugees escaping conflict in Syria.
Agreement will be hard to come by, with many member states opposed to any ‘burden sharing’ proposals. The immediate opposition of Poland and Slovakia to the plan reflected this reluctance to change asylum mechanisms.
An EU agreement hammered out last September to resettle 160,000 Syrian refugees across the 28 member states has failed to come to fruition so far, with barely 1,000 resettled so far and Foreign Minister George Vella admitting the lack of progress was “extremely disappointing.”3
Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans argued that the EU's existing asylum system was ill-equipped to deal with situations like the ongoing Syrian conflict.
"There's simply no way around it: whenever a Member State is overwhelmed, there must be solidarity and a fair sharing of responsibility within the EU. This is what our proposal of today is meant to ensure," he said.
EPP group shadow rapporteur and MEP Roberta Metsola said that the proposed changes were a sign of progress. “While we are not there yet, there is an understanding in Brussels that Member States on the frontline should not have to face disproportionate pressure on their systems alone.”
In a statement, the EPP said it had been calling for many of the proposed changes for over a year. It cautioned against euphoria, saying the EU still needed to work on securing its external borders and developing a “functional” returns policy.
The European Association for the Defense of Human Rights (AEDH) was far less complimentary, saying the Commission was “offering to organise the regression of the rights of asylum seekers and refugees.”
“No lasting solution or project for the future can be based on the withdrawal of the rights of the people. This goes for the European Union and its citizens as well as the refugees,” an AEDH statement said.