Faeser: Lack of commitment
EU states reject quota for refugees
03/29/2022 02:23 am
The voluntariness remains: In view of the large number of refugees from Ukraine, the 27 EU states are unable to agree on a fixed distribution key. Germany’s Interior Minister Faeser is contrite.
There is still disagreement among the member states on how to deal with refugees in the EU, also in view of the war in Ukraine. EU Interior Commissioner Ylva Johansson saw “strong” support for a Commission proposal for better coordination at a meeting of interior ministers in Brussels. Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser, however, complained that the distribution of those seeking protection among the 27 EU countries was not “binding”.
The EU Commission proposed supporting the voluntary admission of Ukrainian refugees in the 27 member states with the help of an “index” that assesses the current burden on the individual states. The number of refugees who have already been admitted to Ukraine, the number of asylum seekers of all nationalities in the past year and the population of the respective country are to be used for this purpose.
According to these calculations, Poland is currently the country most affected, followed by Austria and the Czech Republic. According to Interior Minister Faeser, Germany is in eighth place. “I actually think this index is good,” said Faeser after the meeting on the ARD “Tagesthemen”. But she had demanded in advance that this index was also “bindingly applied”.
However, a “bindingly applied” index would be equivalent to a fixed distribution key, a kind of “quota” per member state – and the term “quota” should be deliberately avoided at the special meeting on the Ukraine war. “We are not working on any quotas or any distribution of migrants,” Interior Commissioner Johansson announced before the meeting.
Swedish Prime Minister: 2015 cannot repeat itself
Since the refugee crisis in 2015, the member states have not been able to agree on a fixed distribution key. Countries like Poland and Hungary in particular resisted this, while countries like Greece and Italy, where many refugees have been arriving for years, have been pushing for a corresponding reform of the EU asylum rules. Countries like Germany and the Nordic countries are also interested because they have so far taken in the majority of the refugees.
Sweden has already made it clear that it does not want to become one of the most important host countries for war refugees again. Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said after a meeting with Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin that 2015 could not be repeated. Your country cannot take in an above-average number of refugees again.
Scholz also insisted on more “solidarity” within the EU. The neighboring countries of Ukraine and especially Poland have so far taken in many people. And Germany is also ready to do so “as always”. But in the spirit of the solidarity agreed at EU level, “other countries would also have to take in a proportion of the refugees.”
The EU Commission’s ten-point plan, which has now been approved by the interior ministers, provides for an EU-wide registration system for Ukrainian war refugees in addition to the introduction of the aforementioned index. At the beginning of March, the EU interior ministers agreed on a common protection status for refugees from Ukraine. You can stay in the EU for up to three years without applying for asylum.
272,000 refugees in Germany alone
The Commission also proposed €17 billion in financial support for the most affected EU countries. The money is to come in part from previously unused funds from the previous multiannual financial framework of the EU.
According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, at least 2.3 million people from Ukraine have arrived in Poland alone. According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, a good 272,000 refugees from the Ukraine were registered in Germany as of this Monday. So far, Germany has been working closely with Poland and France to distribute the Ukrainian refugees. According to Faeser, Spain and other countries are now to be added for coordinated redistribution.