BRUSSELS
The European Union aims to accept 20,000 migrants over the course of two years and resettle them across the 28-nation bloc in the wake of the Mediterranean migrant crisis.
According to the European Commission’s migration plan, presented on Wednesday, refugees would be spread across the EU under a quota scheme based on the member state’s population size, GDP and unemployment rate.
This means Germany, as the EU’s largest economy, would take in the most migrants, followed by France and Italy.
The U.K., Denmark and Ireland have the option to not accept any migrants based on laws adopted under the European Agenda on Migration. Some EU member states, including Hungary, Slovakia and Estonia, oppose the quota scheme.
“It is not acceptable for people around the EU to say: ‘Yes, stop people dying in the Mediterranean,’ and at the same time remain silent when the question is raised: ‘What should happen to these people?’,” European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans told a news conference on Wednesday in Brussels.
“The rules are not broken, they are not applied properly and it is time for us to apply the existing rules properly,” Timmermans added.
The International Organization for Migration has reported that around 1,750 migrants have died in the Mediterranean since the beginning of 2015, a 30-fold increase over the same period last year.
Critics say the West’s decision to help overthrow the Gaddafi regime in 2011 – leaving Libya without a functioning government – has exacerbated the migrant crisis.
“With this agenda, we confirm and broaden our cooperation with the countries of origin and transit in order to save lives, clamp down on smuggling networks and protect those in need,” EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said in a statement on Wednesday.
“But we all know that a real, long term response will come only from fixing the root causes; from poverty to instability caused by wars, to the crises in Libya and Syria,” Mogherini added.
British Home Secretarty Theresa May said Britain would refuse to participate in the EU scheme.
"We cannot do anything which encourages more people to make these perilous journeys – or which makes it easier for the gangs responsible for their misery,” May wrote in the Times newspaper. "That is why the U.K. will not participate in a mandatory system of resettlement or relocation.”
The EU will also set up a civilian mission in Niger in West Africa, which has become a hub for the trafficking of people to Europe.
“We will have increasing European presence to assist Nigerian authorities to tackle the issue of people coming from Niger,” Mogherini said.
