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EU court rules three countries broke law over refugee quotas EU court rules three member states broke law over refugee quotas
(about 1 hour later)
Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland failed to comply with 2015 programme, ECJ saysCzech Republic, Hungary and Poland failed to comply with 2015 programme, ECJ says
The European Union’s top court has ruled that the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland broke EU law by refusing to comply with a refugee quota programme launched after well over a million people entered the bloc, most fleeing war in Syria and Iraq. Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic broke European law when they failed to give refuge to asylum seekers arriving in southern Europe, often having fled war in Syria and Iraq, the EU’s top court has ruled.
In an emergency move in 2015, EU nations agreed to relocate up to 160,000 refugees from Italy and Greece as those two countries buckled under the number of arrivals. Five years on, Greece is still struggling to manage the burden, with thousands of people held in deplorable conditions on the Greek islands. The three central European countries now face possible fines for refusing to take a share of refugees, after EU leaders forced through mandatory quotas to redistribute up to 160,000 asylum seekers at the height of the 2015 migration crisis.
That “temporary relocation mechanism” decision was made in a vote requiring about a two-thirds majority among the EU member countries – 28 at the time. The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland were among a small group of nations that voted against the move. Issuing its judgement on Thursday, the European court of justice said the three member states “had failed to fulfil their obligations under European Union law”. The Czech Republic took in just 12 asylum seekers, while Hungary and Poland refused to take a single person.
In the end, only about 40,000 refugees were relocated. The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland took in almost none over the two years the scheme was in operation. The EU’s executive arm, the European commission, sought an explanation but they gave no satisfactory answers. The court rejected the legal argument that Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic were entitled to disregard EU law in order to maintain public safety, law and order. None of the countries had proved it was necessary to invoke that opt-out clause in the EU treaties, the court concluded.
In its ruling, the European court of justice said that “by refusing to comply with the temporary mechanism for the relocation of applicants for international protection, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have failed to fulfill their obligations under European Union law”. The European commission is now entitled to embark on legal action to impose fines on the three member states.
The three had argued that EU countries alone were responsible for ensuring public safety and not the commission, which drew up the quota scheme and took the countries to court. The decision to impose mandatory quotas of asylum seekers was taken in the teeth of fierce opposition from Hungary and the Czech Republic. After the nationalist Law and Justice party was elected in October 2015, Poland joined its neighbours in opposing the scheme.
But the Luxembourg-based ECJ said they “can rely neither on their responsibilities concerning the maintenance of law and order and the safeguarding of internal security, nor on the alleged malfunctioning of the relocation mechanism to avoid implementing that mechanism”. The quotas have come to be seen as one of the modern EU’s defining moments, which poisoned relations between central Europe and western member states, leaving divisions that continue to thwart a common EU asylum policy.
The failure of nations to take part in a burden-sharing measure meant to help EU partners in distress was at the heart of one of the bloc’s biggest political crises. The issue of immigration then became a major vote-winner for far-right parties. The previous head of the European council Donald Tusk said the scheme had been “divisive and ineffective”, but countries, such as Germany and Sweden, which took in large numbers of refugees, have argued it is unacceptable for member states to shirk the task of easing the strain on the most-affected EU countries.
In September 2015, EU leaders took two decisions to relocate 40,000, then 120,000 asylum seekers from Greece and Italy to other EU countries. More than 1 million migrants and refugees arrived on Europe’s shores in 2015, triggering a political crisis that continues to haunt the union.
When the scheme closed, only 34,712 people had been relocated: 21,999 from Greece and 12,713 from Italy. The European commission claimed that the EU’s deal with Turkey meant the original number of places were no longer needed, because migrant arrivals fell sharply from March 2016.
The UN refugee agency reported last month that more than 36,000 asylum seekers were living in desperate conditions in squalid camps on five Greek islands originally designed for 5,400 people.
Greece’s minister for migration, Notis Mitarachi, told members of the European parliament’s home affairs committee on Thursday that 20 asylum seekers living at a camp near Athens had been confirmed as having coronavirus.
He said no cases had been confirmed on the Greek islands and urged other EU countries to take in people on the islands.
Responding to widespread concern about filthy camp conditions, he said: “Some have argued to transfer people from the mainland – that is from non-infected areas to infected areas – but we do not have empty spaces to do that. We will require additional funding for additional spaces, but these spaces cannot be ready within a few days.
“We will strongly welcome any offers of relocation from member states that have capacity because we cannot resolve this crisis instantly and alone.”
The EU home affairs commissioner, Ylva Johansson, told MEPs that some unaccompanied children on the islands would be relocated from next week. Eight EU countries have volunteered to take in 1,600 lone children.