Brussels: As part of a hotly contested reform needed before a 2024 pan-European election, European Union lawmakers voted on Thursday to mandate that member countries host some of the refugees and migrants arriving to the bloc at times of high arrivals.
Before final details of the reform of the EU's immigration and asylum laws are negotiated with the 27 EU member states, which have long been divided over the so-called "obligatory relocations," the European Parliament adopted its position on the issue.
Others, like Italy and France, where people from the Middle East and Africa arrive on smugglers' boats across the Mediterranean Sea, claim they cannot manage on their own. Countries like Poland and Hungary refuse to accept any of the new arrivals.
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Instead of being compelled by law to take in people, Warsaw, Budapest, and their allies claim they can assist by providing resources such as cash, personnel, or equipment. That falls short, according to the rich destination states like Germany and the countries of origin in the Mediterranean.
When more than a million people, mostly refugees from the Syrian war, arrived on Europe's southern shores in 2015, the bloc's system for regulating immigration and asylum applications broke down.
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That caught the EU off guard, pushing its capacity for security and reception, and sparking a wave of anti-immigration sentiment throughout the union.
Since then, the EU has tightened its external borders and asylum regulations to deter migration, and as the COVID-19 pandemic reduced international travel, the delicate subject of immigration sank further down the political agenda of the bloc.
However, unauthorised arrivals in the Mediterranean increased in 2017, according to Frontex, the EU's border agency.
People, including Italy's far-right government, are leading growing calls for the EU to do more to reduce sea arrivals as irregular immigration is on the rise.
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Ideas to construct border fences and evaluate asylum claims outside of Europe, including in Rwanda, as proposed by Denmark, are once again on the table and a part of the EU's political discussions on managing migration. These ideas were previously perceived as being hard-line.
Diplomats say that even though the EU wants to revamp its broken system before a 2024 election for the entire bloc, the problem of required relocations remains unresolved.