ADVERTISEMENT“Asylum must not be a lottery. EU Member States have a shared responsibility to welcome asylum seekers in a dignified manner, ensuring they are treated fairly and that their case is examined to uniform standards so that, no matter where an applicant applies, the outcome will be similar.”
So reads the EU’s common asylum policy.
But the reality couldn’t be further from the truth. Hungary, latest figures show, accepted just 9 per cent of asylum requests; Bulgaria, by contrast, 94%.
It’s a similar story over the EU’s bid to share the burden of migrants and refugees around the continent.
The majority of migrants to the EU have been arriving in Italy and Greece.
The European Commission, in response to a spike in migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, launched a 10-point action plan to help ease the crisis, including a proposal to relocate and redistribute migrants and asylum seekers.
It involved relocating 40,000 migrants already in Italy or Greece to the rest of the EU, as well as sharing out a further 20,000 refugrees from outside Europe.
Brussels initially wanted to tell EU countries how many migrants they must take, adjusted according to a state’s population, GDP and unemployment.
But there was widespread opposition to the idea. Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were among states to oppose mandatory quotas, Euronews understands.
EU states have now agreed to voluntary quotas for accepting migrants and refugees.
But commitment levels vary across the EU. Hungary says it won’t accept any, while Germany says it will welcome 10,500 migrants from Italy and Greece, 3,000 more than initially proposed.
Relocating 40,000 migrants from Italy and Greece – who’s not taking their fair share?
To shine a light on which countries are blowing hot or cold on the issue, we’ve looked at how many migrants each EU state has taken and compared it with what the EC initially proposed.
So, Austria, for example, was asked to take 1,048 migrants. It took none, giving it a value of -1,048, denoted in brackets.
EU countries which have accepted more migrants than proposed are in red, while those who will take fewer are in blue.
Scroll over each country to see its value.
The UK, Ireland and Denmark are not obliged EU by treaties to take part. Despite this, Dublin said it would accept 600 migrants.
Redistributing 20,000 migrants from outside the EU – who’s not taking their fair share?
ADVERTISEMENTWe’ve also looked at how many of the 20,000 migrants from outside the EU each state has agreed to take, again comparing it with how many the EC proposed each country should take initially, based on a country’s GDP, unemployment levels and population.
EU states which have accepted more migrants than proposed are in red, while those who will take fewer are in blue. Green is used for countries that have equalled the number of migrants it was asked to take initially.
The UK, Denmark and Ireland took part in this part of the scheme, as did four non-EU countries: Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland.
Scroll over each country to see its value.