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World|politics|May 5, 2016 / 10:39 AM
EU proposes fines for member countries that refuse to take in migrants

AKIPRESS.COM - border wire The European Union’s executive body on Wednesday proposed controversial new asylum rules forcing member countries to take in refugees, and it gave a green light to visa-free travel for Turkey and Kosovo, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The new rules from the European Commission, which have ruffled feathers among central and Eastern European states, would require nations to pay €250,000 ($287,000) for each asylum seeker they refuse.

The rules, which need to be approved by the bloc’s member governments and the European Parliament, are aimed at overhauling the current system that places most of the migration burden on the EU’s front-line states, such as Greece and Italy.

“You don’t turn your back on the problem of your neighbor, you share a common solution. That is why we need to introduce a corrective mechanism, triggered automatically,” commission Vice President Frans Timmermans said.

Under the new system, which wouldn’t apply to the U.K., Ireland and Denmark, countries faced with a 150% increase in asylum applications in relation to their population and gross domestic product would have all newcomers redistributed to other EU nations where there are fewer asylum seekers. But any country that already has had a doubling of asylum requests wouldn’t be obligated to take in more people.

The price tag put on asylum seekers is “at least questionable from an ethical point of view,” said one EU diplomat from a central European state. Three other diplomats predicted tough negotiations among EU governments, as previous attempts to make countries pay if they refuse to take in asylum seekers have failed to gain traction.

Several central European countries have come out strongly against the proposal. The Hungarian government said mandatory quotas “are unacceptable,” and the threat of fines is “ridiculous”. Similar statements came from the Czech and Slovak governments.

The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania last year were outvoted when the commission proposed an initial quota system for asylum seekers who had already arrived in Italy and Greece. Slovakia and Hungary have since taken the program to court. The redistribution program so far has only managed to move 1,441 people, just a fraction of the 160,000 people that most other EU countries are supposed to take in by the end of next year.

An EU official said the commission expected the new proposal to be “controversial in some quarters” but insisted the plan was legally sound and fair, as it would oblige countries to share the burden during a massive influx of migrants.

The new plan comes with a proposed beefing-up of the bloc’s asylum agency, giving it the power to calculate how many asylum seekers each country has to take in and setting up a pool of 500 asylum experts to be deployed anywhere there is a crisis situation. This proposal also needs the approval of EU governments and the European Parliament.

The European Commission also backed visa-free status for Turkey and Kosovo and proposed a six-month extension of border controls in the passport-free Schengen zone at specific borders in Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Those controls were put in place last year in reaction to the migration crisis.

The commission said there are still several key reforms tied to its visa-free bid that Ankara must urgently complete in coming weeks. Turkey has five remaining conditions out of the 72 needed to acquire visa-free status, the commission said.

“Over the last weeks, Turkey has made impressive progress. There is still work to be done, but if Turkey continues at the same pace, it can meet the remaining benchmarks,” Mr. Timmermans said.

An EU official singled out a softening of Turkey’s antiterrorism law as the toughest condition for Ankara to meet, as it would need to narrow down the scope of what it considers terrorism-related activities. “Basically we don’t want them to jail journalists and academics on terrorism charges for simply writing open letters,” the official said.

The EU promised to fast-track Turkey’s visa-free bid as part of its migration deal with Ankara in March, setting the end of June as a target for trying to complete the process. Turkish officials have warned that if they aren’t granted visa-free status by then, they could pull back from the deal under which they have agreed to take back thousands of Syrian and other asylum seekers from Greece.

EU member states and lawmakers, however, have raised concerns about broadening visa-free access to the bloc to Turkey. A clear majority of member states and the European Parliament must approve the deal. The European Parliament later on Wednesday warned it wouldn’t give its green light to visa liberalization until all remaining conditions are met.

As part of efforts to persuade member states to accept the deal, the European Commission also agreed to reinforce its safeguard mechanisms for visa-free agreements, making it easier and faster to suspend the deals if people overstay or if there is a sudden increase in unjustified asylum requests.

Under the visa-free arrangement, Turkish citizens with biometric passports would be able to access the EU for 90 days without a visa. They wouldn’t be permitted to work in the EU.

Mr. Timmermans said Turkey has until the end of the year to roll out biometric passports throughout the country. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Wednesday said his country would start issuing new passports that meet EU standards on June 1.

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