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Turkish coast guard intercepts dozens of migrants on Aegean European Union ponders better way to deal with migrants
(about 4 hours later)
DIKILI, Turkey — The Turkish coast guard has apprehended dozens of migrants on the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece. BRUSSELS — The European Union is looking into a fundamental reform of its migration policies, which have heaped pressure on some nations like Greece and Italy as over a million migrants and refugees arrived in Europe over the past year.
About 60 people, including some Syrians, were brought to a coast guard station in the western province of Izmir on Wednesday. The EU Commission announced Wednesday it wants to amend the current principle where the first nation where a migrant arrives must process their asylum request. The policy is a central tenet of the 28-nation bloc’s migration system, which has failed over the past year, EU Vice-President Frans Timmermans said.
The European Union began sending back migrants this week under a deal with Turkey aimed at preventing illegal migration to Europe. “The current system is not sustainable,” Timmermans said.
On Monday, 202 migrants from 11 countries were sent back to Turkey from the Greek islands of Lesbos and Chios. Instead, the Commission proposes to activate a “distribution key” to spread asylum applicants around the EU. That means each EU nation would have to take a set number of asylum-seekers, according to a quota devised by the bloc.
The same day, 155 migrants were caught on the Aegean by the Turkish coast guard. Still, a mandatory distribution of some asylum-seekers already in Europe has already caused serious frictions among many EU nations and the Commission’s proposal Wednesday to amend one rule was unlikely to change that immediately.
Meanwhile, dozens of Syrians were flown to German, Finland and the Netherlands on Monday and Tuesday. The Commission said in a document to EU institutions that “significant structural weaknesses and shortcomings” in the current system were rife, which placed “a disproportionate responsibility” on some nations, while others, mostly eastern European members, sought to shield their countries from having to carry much of the refugee burden.
The EU-Turkey deal stipulates that for every Syrian returned from Europe to Turkey another should be resettled in Europe. The bloc’s inefficient rules on how to handle migration along with its slow decision-making once the refugee crisis hit last year have been fodder for critics who portray the EU as an inefficient, outmoded institution.
Even French President Francois Hollande, a staunch defender of the EU, was forced to admit Wednesday that the European Union’s biggest problem is its slow decision-making process — whether in the financial crisis, the fight against terrorism or a common response to the refugee crisis.
In an interview in the German daily Bild, Hollande said “in the end (Europe) always succeeds in finding a solution ... but we have to pay a high price for the lost time.”
More than 53,000 refugees and migrants have been stranded in Greece since Austria and the Balkan nations north of Greece — Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia — closed their land borders last month.
Prior to that, hundreds of thousands fleeing war and poverty at home crossed the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece, then went over land to wealthy European nations like Germany and Sweden.
To stem that flow and break the Turkish smuggling rings ferrying migrants to Greece, the EU reached a deal with Turkey last month. Now those arriving on Greek islands from March 20 onwards who do not apply for asylum in Greece or whose application is rejected will be deported back to Turkey. For every Syrian returned to Turkey, another Syrian there will be relocated to a European country.
The deportations began Monday with 202 people being sent back from Greece to Turkey, but have been suspended for technical reasons.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.