Yahoo – AFP,
22 Sep 2015
Brussels (AFP) - EU interior ministers on Tuesday approved by a "large majority" a plan to relocate 120,000 refugees around the bloc but only after overriding fierce opposition from central and eastern European countries.
Migrants
walk through the Hungarian countryside after crossing the border
with Croatia
on September 21, 2015 (AFP Photo/Attila Kisbenedek)
|
Brussels (AFP) - EU interior ministers on Tuesday approved by a "large majority" a plan to relocate 120,000 refugees around the bloc but only after overriding fierce opposition from central and eastern European countries.
"Decision
on relocation for 120,000 persons adopted today, by large majority of member
states," the EU's Luxembourg presidency said in a tweet after an emergency
meeting in Brussels.
"We,
Slovaks, Romanians, Hungarians against, and Finland abstained. The resolution
was accepted," Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec said in a separate
tweet.
The four
countries, led by Hungary, are bitterly opposed to the European Commission
plan, insisting Brussels has no right to make them take in thousands of the
people seeking refuge in Europe.
To do so,
amounts to a violation of national sovereignty, they argue.
An EU
diplomat told AFP the decision was taken by so-called qualified majority vote.
It means
that the Commission failed to get unanimous backing from all 28 member states
for its relocation plan ahead of an emergency EU leaders summit Wednesday on
the worst migrant crisis since World War II.
The
squabble was a repeat of the interior ministers meeting last week but this
time, pressed by France and Germany, the plan was put to a vote.
The outcome
is binding on all 28 member states although implementation may prove
problematic given the depth of opposition and the issue will very likely
feature again at Wednesday's summit.
Last week's
meeting did endorse plans to relocate a separate 40,000 refugees which the
Commission unveiled in May as the crisis deepened.
The
diplomat said that of the 120,000, some 66,000 migrants who have been granted
asylum will be relocated from Greece and Italy which along with Hungary have
borne the brunt of the flood of migrants fleeing war and turmoil across the
Middle East and Africa.
That leaves
54,000 places -- which Hungary had rejected in its opposition to the Commission
plan -- to be redistributed.
EU sources
said earlier Tuesday Greece and Italy may get most of these places, while
others now finding themselves in the frontline such as Austria and Croatia
could also get additional help.
The new EU refugee quotas pic.twitter.com/TKBzHw23pt
— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) 23 september 2015
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