Top EU court adviser deals blow to easterners' refugee battle

[webfact]

Top EU court adviser deals blow to easterners' refugee battle

By Gabriela Baczynska

 

FILE PHOTO: Migrants on a wooden boat await rescue by the Malta-based NGO Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) in the central Mediterranean in international waters off the coast of Sabratha in Libya, April 15, 2017. REUTERS/Darrin Zammit Lupi/File Photo

 

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - The top European Union court's adviser on Wednesday dismissed a challenge brought by Slovakia and Hungary against the obligatory relocation of refugees across the bloc, dealing a blow to the easterners' migration battles that upset their EU peers.

 

The two states - backed by their neighbour Poland - wanted the court to annul a 2015 EU scheme to have each member state host a number of refugees to help ease pressure on Greece and Italy, struggling with mass arrivals across the Mediterranean.

 

But the court's Advocate General Yves Bot rejected the procedural arguments presented by Bratislava and Budapest that obligatory quotas were unlawful.

 

"The contested decision automatically helps to relieve the considerable pressure on the asylum systems of Italy and Greece following the migration crisis in the summer of 2015 and ... is thus appropriate for attaining the objective which it pursues," he said.

 

A final ECJ ruling is expected after the summer break. The court does not have to but generally does follow the advisory opinion of the Advocate General.

 

The nationalist-minded, eurosceptic governments in Warsaw and Budapest have refused to take in a single asylum-seeker under the plan. Slovakia and the Czech Republic have also stalled, citing security concerns after a raft of Islamist attacks in the EU in recent years.

 

Their reluctance to help the two southern frontline states, as well as wealthier EU countries such as Germany, which has taken in hundreds of thousands of migrants, have precipitated bitter disputes in the bloc and weakened its unity.

 

Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico said in a statement his government was sticking to its decision to refuse mandatory quotas and called the Advocate General's opinion "non binding".

 

Hungary dismissed the ruling as politically motivated.

 

"The main elements of the statement are political, which are practically used to disguise the fact that there are no legal arguments in it," Pal Volner, state secretary of the Justice Ministry, was cited as saying by the state news agency MTI.

 

GATEWAY TO EUROPE

 

The bloc's executive Commission last month launched legal cases against Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic for defaulting on their legal obligations.

 

It stepped the cases up on Wednesday, while EU's Migration Commission Dimitris Avramopoulos welcomed the court's advisory opinion

 

"None of the arguments they put forward justify that they don't implement the relocation decision," he said.

 

The European Commission said on Wednesday that some 24,700 people had been moved from Greece and Italy under the plan that had been due to cover 160,000.

 

It said it had earmarked 377.5 million euros - or 10,000 euros per person - for 2018 for a twin scheme to legally bring to Europe asylum seekers from places such as Turkey, Libya or Niger, rather than have people risk their lives in perilous Mediterranean crossings operated by smugglers.

 

A 2016 deal with Ankara drastically cut arrivals from Turkey to Greece, making Italy the main gateway to Europe now, with some 94,400 arrivals so far this year across the sea.

 

Brussels offered Italy extra money and help, and urged EU states to step up relocations from that country. It also said Rome had to improve registration of those arriving, especially some 25,000 Eritreans, to qualify them for the move.

 

In other judgments, the Luxembourg-based court said Austria and Slovenia were right in 2016 to send back a Syrian national and two Afghan families back to Croatia to handle their asylum applications, as it was their first country of entry to the EU.

 

The ECJ also ruled that an Eritrean who had sought asylum in Germany in 2015 was right to expect that country to handle his case because he has already been there for more than three months, rather than be sent back to Italy, through which he had first entered the EU.

 

(Additional reporting by Elizabeth Miles in Brussels and Krisztina Than in Budapest; Editing by Alison Williams)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-07-27

[Caps]

Well done the Eastern European Countries.  Keep saying no, then someone might start to realise enought is enough.

Let Italy crack

Austria has just won a court case to push all the vermin to their first EU country of entry due to the Dublin agreement.  So I dont see how these East EU countries are a first point of entry, so why should they take them?    

[darksidedog]

21 minutes ago, Caps said:

Well done the Eastern European Countries.  Keep saying no, then someone might start to realise enought is enough.

Let Italy crack

Austria has just won a court case to push all the vermin to their first EU country of entry due to the Dublin agreement.  So I dont see how these East EU countries are a first point of entry, so why should they take them?    

I think you are missing the point of what the EU is supposedly about. The idea is that it is one big family, that shares burdens and helps keep the loads balanced. The simple fact is that an unprecedented number of migrants fled Northern Africa and swamped Italy, and seriously financially strapped Greece. They came to stay alive and sending them all back to war zones is unconscionable, so they have to be placed somewhere. No single country can take them all, so the family nature of the EU says that ALL will share in helping. One or two Nations saying NO, especially when done on largely Nationalistic grounds, which is against the very essence of the family concept, is like walking away while you watch your brother drown.

[Caps]

24 minutes ago, darksidedog said:

I think you are missing the point of what the EU is supposedly about. The idea is that it is one big family, that shares burdens and helps keep the loads balanced. The simple fact is that an unprecedented number of migrants fled Northern Africa and swamped Italy, and seriously financially strapped Greece. They came to stay alive and sending them all back to war zones is unconscionable, so they have to be placed somewhere. No single country can take them all, so the family nature of the EU says that ALL will share in helping. One or two Nations saying NO, especially when done on largely Nationalistic grounds, which is against the very essence of the family concept, is like walking away while you watch your brother drown.

No I am not missing the point, and they are not all from war zones, some come from countries that are not at war,  if they were then where are all the women?  Maybe the men left them to fight?

The family concept is working well for the Austrians, maybe its one rule for the well off countries and one rule for the rest?  If it was the very essence as you put it then Austria should have to keep all those that made it there.  Also that would mean that the Dublin Agreement is a waste of time and paper, a bit like the EU.

No one ask Italy to let them all in, they could have and should have all been taken back instead of giving the People Traffickers a licence to print money

Edited July 27, 2017 by Caps

[lovelomsak]

17 minutes ago, Caps said:

No I am not missing the point, and they are not all from war zones, some come from countries that are not at war,  if they were then where are all the women?  Maybe the men left them to fight?

The family concept is working well for the Austrians, maybe its one rule for the well off countries and one rule for the rest?  If is was the very essence as you put it then Austria should have to keep all those that made it there.  Also that would mean that the Dublin Agreement is a waste of time and paper, a bit like the EU.

No one ask Italy to let them all in, they could have and should have all been taken back instead of giving the People Traffickers a licence to print money

You are so right and say it so well wish I could have said it. 

[Trouble]

I think that if some of these countries stick to their guns it could bring about the partial unraveling of the EU.  Seems some members of the big happy family aren't so happy having to take in all these people. Heaven forbid there are some countries that want to maintain some kind of homogenous culture as that goes against the "enlightened" few at the top of the EU that want cultural diversity for everyone.  We are not seeing cultural diversity as much as we are seeing places that are just enclaves of immigrants having little interest in adjusting to the culture of their new chosen home. It's a mess.

[boomerangutang]

It's one of a thousand ramifications of overpopulation.  
Other factors, relating to the refugee-producing countries......

 

>>>  Dearth of resources

>>>  No jobs

>>>  Continual armed conflicts

>>>  Mean-spirited belief systems

>>>  Neighboring Islamist countries not doing much to assist

>>>  Abysmal leaders

>>>  Making as many babies as possible, coupled with no birth-control

 

I'm amazed that Italy and Greece don't commission boats to take the refugees back to their countries of origin.

 

 

 

[Khun Han]

Why doesn't the EU explore the option of spending that money on paying adjacent contries to those that the migrants are leaving to set up high quality refugee camps? If this is about providing a safe haven (as opposed to economic migrancy), then this is by far the best option. Not least of the reasons because it would be relatively easy for the migrants to return home when able to do so.

[dave_boo]

I thought that population transfer is a crime against humanity.

 

They always say it re the "Palestinian" conflict.

[the guest]

9 hours ago, Trouble said:

few at the top of the EU that want cultural diversity for everyone

Yeah right, this means a dilution of EU country's own culture and values.

 

Fortunately, Asia doesn't have that problem, as there is virtually Zero diversity. Perhaps EU should take a feather out of Thailand's, Japan's or even China's book.