EU laments poor response to refugees crisis
A senior European Union leader has criticized the bloc's response to tragic Mediterranean migrant crisis as inadequate.
“It's not enough to just fight the symptoms of this crisis,” said European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, speaking to lawmakers at the European Parliament in the French city of Strasbourg on Wednesday.
He censured the response of EU countries to the latest tragedy, saying that “member states must extend development aid, that's absolutely necessary.”
Juncker also called for the imposition of a compulsory quota system for the bloc’s countries to protect the asylum seekers and not leave it to frontline countries like Italy, Greece, and Malta, or those like Sweden and Germany, which are housing an unbalanced amount of refugees.
At present, only five EU countries, including Germany, receive 75 percent of the asylum seekers in the bloc.
“I will appeal… for the establishment of a quota system…We must distribute refugees throughout the whole of Europe,” he further added.
“We need to share solidarity… If we don't open the door, even partly, you can't act surprised when the unfortunate from across the planet break in through the window… We have to open the doors to make sure they don't come in through the windows,” Juncker noted.
Juncker promised that he would present a plan on May 13 for the redistribution of refugees across the whole EU.
Junker’s remarks came after the European Parliament urged EU member states to fairly shoulder the burden of the migrants crisis that continues to tarnish the reputation of the bloc in the wake of recent refugee disasters.
The EU has been under severe criticism for scrapping its rescue operations for asylum seekers in the Mediterranean.
About 170,000 migrants reportedly entered the EU region through Italy last year, most of them departing from Libya.
Predictions by aid groups show that if necessary measures are not taken to tackle the migration crisis, there could be 30,000 deaths at sea this year, with Italy having to process 200,000 migrants reaching the country.
More than 1,700 migrants have died while trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe this year, a nearly 30-fold increase compared to the same period last year.
RS/AS/MHB
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