Refusal of Some EU States to Agree on Migrant Quotas 'Counterproductive'

© AFP 2023 / ATTILA KISBENEDEKRiot police stand on the train track as they monitor migrants and refugees at the Keleti (eastern) railway station in Budapest on September 1, 2015
Riot police stand on the train track as they monitor migrants and refugees at the Keleti (eastern) railway station in Budapest on September 1, 2015 - Sputnik International
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On Wednesday, European Commission (EC) President Jean-Claude Juncker said EU member-states should agree on a "compulsory basis" to resettle 160,000 refugees amid the ongoing migrant crisis. Denmark and Slovakia have expressed opposition to the proposal.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The opposition of some EU members to the emergency proposal to resettle 160,000 refugees will hinder the process of finding a solution to the humanitarian crisis, a member of the Hungarian Association for Migrants Menedek told Sputnik on Thursday.

"I condemn this rejection, as the problem is global. It affects not only Hungary or some other states, but the whole of Europe. So, everybody should take part in solving the problem," Lila Zentai from Menedek, who now coordinates the provision of assistance to arriving refugees at Nyugati railway station in Budapest, said.

Following Juncker’s statement, the ruling Danish Venstre Party said the country wanted no part in the EC plan. Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak called the EU approach to the crisis too "administrative" and said the issue would be further discussed by foreign ministers of the Visegrad Group, comprising the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, with the foreign minister of Germany, on Friday.

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"I do not know whether this [resettlement] would work… Some refugees obviously do not want to go to other countries, to leave their families. So, it would open new problems, but still I think it would be the first step to find the solution for the crisis," Zentai said.

On Thursday, European lawmakers backed the resettlement of 160,000 refugees in the European Union over the next two years.

The vote of 432 to 142, with 57 abstentions, backed a permanent mechanism amending the Dublin rules, requiring migrants to seek asylum in the first EU member state of arrival to prevent multiple applications and abuse of the system.

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