Geneva: The UN High Commissioner for Refugees called on Friday on the European Union to admit up to 2,00,000 refugees as part of a “mass relocation programme” that would be binding on EU states.
“People who are found to have a valid protection claim... must then benefit from a mass relocation programme, with the mandatory participation of all EU member states,” Antonio Guterres said in a statement that referred to “as many as 200,000 places”.
EU countries were set to try to bridge differences on Europe’s escalating migrant crisis at a foreign ministers’ meeting on Friday, with the shocking image of a dead Syrian toddler washed up on a beach driving calls for binding refugee quotas.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande on Thursday urged EU members to accept “binding” refugee quotas. Germany is calling on the European Union to tighten asylum rules for western Balkans nationals by designating the states of the region “safe countries of origin”, a government spokesman said on Friday.
“The states of the western Balkans are making their way toward Europe, some of them have ambitions of applying for membership (of the EU),” government spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters on Friday.
