EP backs migrant quota plan

On September 17, with 372 votes in favor, 124 votes against and 54 abstentions, the European Parliament (EP) approved a plan to redistribute 120,000 new migrants among European Union (EU) countries.

Migrants from Middle Eastern countries flood the Croatia-Serbia border area near the town of Tovarnik, eastern Croatia on September 17. Photo: AFP/TTXVN.

The plan, which aims to share the burden with frontline countries Greece, Hungary and Italy, is seen as a move to increase pressure on EU interior ministers to approve the proposal next week, after failing to do so at a meeting of EU justice and interior ministers on September 14 in Brussels.

EU interior ministers will meet again on 22 September to discuss the plan, with an EU summit likely to also take place.

European Commission (EC) Vice President Frans Timmermans stressed that this EP vote is a statement by the EC and EP to EU ministers that the time for action has come.

So far, nearly 500,000 migrants fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa have arrived in Europe, but EU countries have only agreed to resettle 40,000 asylum seekers currently in Italy and Greece.

In a related development, Croatian police said on September 17 that at least 5,650 migrants had entered Croatia in the past 24 hours to try to open a new route to Northern Europe, after Hungary closed its border with Serbia.

Croatia is moving migrants to reception centres around the capital Zagrev after registering them. The country says it can handle a few thousand migrants, but does not have the capacity to cope with tens of thousands.

According to News