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Bulgaria to ask EU for smaller immigration quota

Xinhua, June 8, 2015 Adjust font size:

Bulgaria's Council for European Affairs here on Monday decided that the country will ask the European Union (EU) for smaller immigration quota because of its possibilities and geographical location.

The decision, which will be presented to the meeting of the EU's Justice and Home Affairs Council in Luxembourg, said that quotas for migrants proposed by the European Commission should comply with the possibilities and the geographical location of the countries, and "be considerably smaller for countries like Bulgaria, which are EU external border and are under strong migratory pressure," the government said in a statement.

According to the scheme for the relocation of 40,000 migrants from Italy and Greece proposed on May 27 by the European Commission, Bulgaria should receive 572 people, including 343 from Italy and 229 from Greece, the statement said.

In addition, the EU member states should engage voluntarily in the resettlement of an additional 20,000 migrants, and Bulgaria has a quota of 1.08 percent or 216 people, the statement said.

"The EC proposal does not consider the specific geographical location of our country as an external border of the EU, in close proximity to regions that are a source of migration," the government said.

"The government insists that the quotas for countries on the front line, permanently exposed to migratory pressures and near regions with sustained and growing crisis, should be smaller than the quotas for countries inside the EU or not under such pressure," the statement said.

The lack of a common European policy on integration, leads to significant differences in the capabilities of individual EU member states, the statement said.

The EU should think about the place, and the best and fastest ways immigrants could be integrated, it added.

Since 2013, Bulgaria has been facing an unprecedented wave of refugees. According to data from the State Agency for Refugees, 43,869 foreigners have sought asylum in Bulgaria since 1993, of whom 7,144 arrived in 2013 and 11,081 in 2014. In the first four months of 2015, the number was 4,377. Endit