Brussels, 03/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - European Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos and Luxembourg Minister for Asylum and Migration Jean Asselborn will travel to Athens on Wednesday 4 November to meet the first group to be relocated from Greece. The 30 people will be relocated to Luxembourg, said the European Commission and the Luxembourg Presidency of the EU in a press release on Tuesday 3 November.
These 30 relocations come after the 86 refugees who have already been relocated from Italy, largely to Sweden, following the decisions, adopted by home affairs ministers, on sharing out 160,000 people, essentially Syrians and Iraqis, requiring international protection across the EU (see EUROPE 11394 and 11395).
Over 600,000 people have arrived in Greece since the start of the year, according to Commission figures. On Friday 30 October, the Commission announced that France and Spain had indicated that they were ready to begin relocating people. Under the terms of the home affairs ministers' decisions, the relocation process will continue over the course of two years. Thus far, 14 member states have pledged a total of 1,418 places out of the 160,000 required.
Greece is struggling to put in place the “hotspot” arrangements for the registration and identification of migrants arriving. This first relocation “is a symbolic moment, but it is also a crucial first step in a process that has to become systematic”, said Avramopoulos, indicating that “it is now time to step up a gear, to have all hotspots fully functioning” (five are planned in Greece). Luxembourg wanted, symbolically, to be the first country to welcome refugees from Greece.
Asselborn and Avramopoulos will also meet with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Alternate Minister of Interior and Administrative Reconstruction responsible for Migration Policy Ioannis Mouzalas to take stock of how the migration crisis is being managed on the islands of the Mediterranean and how the hotspots are progressing, to make them fully operational and to speed up relocation, said the Luxembourg Presidency in a press release.
Also on Wednesday, the second teleconference on the situation on the Balkan migration route will take place among the countries concerned (see EUROPE 11419). Slovenia will brief its partners on progress on the provision of 400 police officers promised to it by the leaders of the countries affected, at the mini summit organised by the Commission on 25 October. The Commission announced on Tuesday that two further countries, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg, had given their support to the civil protection mechanism activated by Croatia, France having declared its support for the civil protection mechanism relating to Slovenia.
Merkel speaks of possible armed confrontations. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking at a CDU rally in Darmstadt on Monday evening, warned of possible armed clashes between Balkan countries through which many refugees pass, were Germany to close its border with Austria, the German media report. Tension is already high in the Western Balkans “and I don't want to see military conflicts again”, she said.
In Germany, the refugee issue is also splitting the ruling Conservative-Christian Democrat coalition. The Bavarian Conservatives of the CSU are calling for Germany to take in fewer refugees and want “transit zones” to be set up at the German-Austrian border to speed up screening and returns to countries of origin. This idea has, however, been dismissed by the Social Democratic SPD.
Informal European summit in Malta on 12 November.
European Council President Donald Tusk has, it should be noted, called an informal European summit to discuss the issue of migration on the sidelines of the EU-Africa summit in Valetta, Malta on Thursday 12 November. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)