Faced with an
\nexodus of migrants from North Africa and the Middle East, Europe also risks an
\ninstitutional deadlock, as Brussels and national authorities from certain EU
\nstates are divided over the hosting of refugees. On Thursday, the European
\nParliament approved the emergency solutions proposed by the president of the
\nEuropean Commission Jean-Claude Juncker with regard to the distribution of
\nrefugees across the Union. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Moreover, in a
\nresolution adopted with a large majority in Strasbourg, Euro MPs have
\ncriticised what they described as the regrettable lack of solidarity on
\nthe part of governments towards asylum-seekers. The most reticent are the
\nheads of state and government in central and east-European countries, whose
\nposition reflects, to a large extent, the views of their own citizens. Hungary,
\nRomania, Bulgaria and Slovakia have no experience in handling such challenges. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Unlike
\nmany states in Western Europe, these countries never had colonies to act as a
\nsource of migration, have not had high living standards to become an attraction
\nfor millions of migrants and they were never home to non-indigenous Muslim
\ncommunities. Like in Budapest and Bratislava, the authorities in Bucharest also
\ninsisted on the use of voluntary refugee quotas and reiterated their opposition
\nto obligatory quotas. Under the EU emergency relocation scheme, Romania is to
\ntake in 4,646 refugees compared with the initial 1,785, which Romania says
\nreflects its available accommodation. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
This
\nis not about numbers, but people, emphasised president Klaus Iohannis, who
\nagain rejected the obligatory quotas, which, he says, were calculated in a very
\nbureaucratic way, without prior consultation with member states. Romania cannot
\nreceive a higher number of refugees than its accommodation capacity allows it,
\nthe country’s foreign minister Bogdan Aurescu reiterated. He says the scheme
\nproposed by Jean-Claude Juncker is only the starting point for future
\nnegotiations.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Bogdan
\nAurescu: These are only proposals. They will be
\nnegotiated, discussed and agreed on by member states. The fist step of this
\nnegotiation process is on the 14th of September at the extraordinary
\nmeeting of the Justice and Internal Affairs Council. As far as I am aware, the
\ntext of the Commission’s proposal does not contain the word ‘sanctions’. There
\nis an idea that member states that are not able for the moment to take in
\nrefugees for objective reasons should pay instead 0.002% of their GDP as
\nfinancial compensation. However, this idea will also be subject to discussion
\nand negotiation among member states.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
On
\nthe political scene, both the interim leader of the ruling Social Democratic
\nParty Liviu Dragnea and the spokesman for the National Liberal Party, in
\nopposition, Ionut Stroe, said they supported president Iohannis’ position on
\nimmigration. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The authorities in Bucharest are reticent to accept the obligatory immigrant quotas assigned by the European Commission<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":64387,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[29207,38147,29237],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-65146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-migration","tag-obligatory-quotas","tag-refugees"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n