New migrant plan for Europe

The European Commission has unveiled a new mandatory migration plan for the 27 member states. It was announced on September 23, just two weeks after the recent fire at the overcrowded Moria camp in the Greek island of Lesbos, which has highlighted the urgency of reforms and a more humanitarian plan.

”Voluntary solidarity is not enough,” said European Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson in an interview with a group of European journalists, quoted by France 24. The new “Mandatory Solidarity Mechanism” would oblige member states to host a share of refugees in exchange for funding, according to Reuters. Similar reforms were unsuccessfully attempted in 2015 and 2016.

The new migration plan replaces the Dublin Regulation, which was adopted in 2003 and was critized as being considered unfair both to asylum seekers and to certain Member States. It determined which State would be responsible for examining an asylum application making responsibility normally fell on coastal countries such as Italy, Greece and Spain.

This pact arrives five years after the so-called Europe’s refugee crisis in 2015, when one million people entered Europe, most crossing by sea and most from Syria and over 3,770 people died trying to cross the Mediterranean, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).