BRUSSELS, September 9 (Sputnik) – The member states of the European Union need to accept a total of 160,000 migrants over the next two years, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Wednesday.
"Today we are proposing a second emergency mechanism to relocate a further 120,000 people from Italy, Greece and Hungary. This has to be done in a compulsory way," Juncker said in a state of the union address to the European Parliament.
The new figure includes the 40,000 migrants the Commission had proposed to resettle in Europe this spring.
"It's 160,000, that's the number Europeans have to take in their arms and I really hope that this time everyone will be on board," Juncker urged, saying that Europe should not distinguish on the bases of religion, belief, or philosophy.
He called on the European Council interior and justice ministers to agree to the new commitments at their meeting on September 14 in Brussels.
He called on Germany, France and Spain to take on the greatest share of the newly arrived migrants, accounting for 0.11 percent of the total EU population.
Juncker hailed the efforts of the countries neighboring Syria, including Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt for bearing the brunt of the migrant crisis, adding that the European Union has "clearly underdelivered."
