European Commission to Unveil Asylum Options

The European Commission is due Wednesday to release a paper describing at least two options for dealing with the near-unprecedented influx of migrants seeking asylum within European borders.

Media reports say EU authorities in Brussels will unveil a proposal to overhaul the European asylum rules, and another proposal to simply modify the existing plan, known as the Dublin regulation.

Reports say the EU policy paper describes "significant structural weaknesses and shortcomings" in Europe's asylum and migration policy, which dates back to the 1990s.

One option would modify the existing Dublin rules, which state that migrants must apply for asylum in the first EU country they enter, a rule that has placed a heavy burden on Greece and Italy at the eastern border of the EU. The new option would add a "fairness mechanism" allowing migrants to be distributed to other parts of the EU in times of crisis, to take the burden off the border nations.

• But the other option outlined in the policy paper is to scrap the Dublin regulation altogether and implement a mandatory redistribution system based on a nation's economy and the degree to which it could handle an influx of asylum-seekers. 

It would be a variation on the plan under which the EU is currently operating, in which member states have agreed to resettle some 160,000 Syrian refugees among them. So far, only about 1,000 refugees have been resettled under that plan, calling into question its practicality...
  [voanews.com]
6/4/16
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Related:

• The European Commission is due to unveil options for reforms to the way EU countries handle asylum claims in response to the migrant crisis...