Germany, France, Spain to Accept Almost Half of 55,000 Relocated Refugees

 

Germany, France and Spain have agreed to host the "lion's share" of almost 55,000 refugees to be resettled from EU and non-EU countries, Belgian newspaper Le Soir reported Tuesday.

On Monday, the heads of the EU interior ministries pledged to redistribute over 32,000 refugees from the Middle East and Africa throughout the European Union and to relocate to the bloc a further 22,000 or more asylum seekers, during a meeting in Brussels.

In mid-June, EU leaders rejected a plan, proposed by the European Commission, to relocate some 40,000 asylum seekers that had arrived to Italy and Greece, since it presupposed an emergency mandatory migrant quota system.

The European Commission's proposals were revised, with the heads of the EU member states' interior ministries being charged with designing similar voluntary schemes by the end of July.

The European Union is struggling with an acute influx of refugees, crossing the Mediterranean Sea to escape economic hardship and warfare at home.

Since the beginning of 2015, some 153,000 undocumented migrants have been detected at Europe's external frontiers, the EU's border agency Frontex said in late June.

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* EC Migrant quota assigned to Spain