France, Germany, and Italy call for fairer distribution of refugees in EU
The foreign ministers of France, Germany, and Italy have called for an overhaul of EU asylum rules in response to the ongoing refugee crisis.
In a joint letter to EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, the three ministers called for a more efficient asylum system and a fairer allocation of asylum seekers among EU member states.
The letter, signed by France’s Laurent Fabius, Germany’s Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and Italy’s Paolo Gentiloni, states that: “A more efficient asylum system for persons in need of international protection goes hand-in-hand with a more efficient repatriation policy of irregular migrants at the EU level, with the aim of granting refugee status rapidly and efficiently to those who are genuinely in need of international protection.”
Under the existing Common European Asylum System, people are required to apply for asylum in the first country they reach. In response to the current crisis, Germany has begun accepting asylum claims from people from Syria, regardless of which EU country they first arrived in. Germany is expected to register as many as 800,000 refugees this year.
The European Commission has proposed a system to relocate asylum seekers from Greece and Italy to other member states, but has met resistance from national leaders, particularly in Eastern Europe.
German chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that if European countries fail to agree to an appropriate distribution of refugees, the open-border arrangement in place across the Schengen area could be at risk. The Schengen agreement covers 26 European countries, including 22 of the 28 EU member states.
EU asylum policy comes under analysis in an IZA World of Labor article by Tim Hatton. In the article, Hatton argues that, where the volume of asylum applications varies widely across countries, policy harmonization is not sufficient. He writes that: “The most realistic option would be to first set the central policy to obtain the optimal number for all the countries together and then to reallocate asylum-seekers to obtain the ‘right’ number for each country. The deeper policy integration that this would require is more feasible than is sometimes believed.”
Read more on this story at France 24 and EUobserver.
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Setting policy on asylum: Has the EU got it right? by Tim Hatton