Brussels, 21/05/2013 (Agence Europe) - According to a press release from the EP civil liberties committee (LIBE), the European Commissioner for justice and home affairs, Cecilia Malmström, proposed to MEPs, in Strasbourg on Monday evening, that they set up an annual discussion forum to evaluate member states' efforts on reception and “relocation” facilities for refugees arriving in the EU. The proposal was rather well received by MEPs but still does not fully meet their expectations, because for a number of months, they have been calling for a sustainable intra-European mutual aid system between member states on a voluntary but permanent basis, which includes a formula for distributing refugees among the different countries. On Monday, Commissioner Malmström provided an answer to the written question from the chair of the LIBE committee, Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar (S&D, Spain) who asked her about Council commitments and the possibility of extending the pilot project carried out in Malta (EUREMA) between 2011 in 2012 (and which is continuing until the middle of this year) into a permanent initiative.
During the first year, the project involved around ten member states redistributing the 235 refugees who arrived in Malta, according to a note by the UNHCR. During the second year, 256 refugees were “relocated” and Germany was the country in both cases that offered or provided the most places though not necessarily as part of the EUREMA project. Some countries, indeed, managed the “Maltese refugee relocation” project bilaterally and only seven member states did so under the auspices of the European programme.
In 2012, the European Parliament expressed its wish for this project to become permanent but on Monday, Malmström indicated that, at the present time, there was not enough support to put forward such a proposal and informed MEPs that “an huge majority of countries were strongly opposed to a legislative initiative” on the subject. The letter from the chair of the LIBE committee points out that, in a 2011 communication, the Commission made a commitment to put this idea forward to member states and that the member states said they were prepared, in 2012, to examine all possibilities in this connection. The commissioner said that the only solution that was likely to work in the current period was the annual forum and the production of reports on member states' practices on asylum. Malmström also informed MEPs that that this forum should also be able to fulfil the same objectives as a legislative instrument. (SP/transl.fl)