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Bulgarian official urges EU to take adequate measures tackling refugee crisis

Xinhua, September 17, 2015 Adjust font size:

A Bulgarian official said here on Thursday that the European Commission's proposals for relocation of refugees and sharing the responsibility are inadequate to the realities in countries such as Bulgaria.

Over the past six months, Bulgarian border authorities have detained 19,000 refugees, and since two months, those detained did not want to stay in Bulgaria, Philip Gounev, the country's Deputy Minister of Interior told the roundtable "Refugees and Human Trafficking in the Context of New Migration Reality in Europe."

Occupancy rate of the refugee accommodation centers declined to around 50 percent, levels that were not seen since they were built, Gounev said.

This and the situation in Turkey and other borders called into question the whole European system for protection of the external borders and providing asylum, he said.

Yes, sharing responsibility, the burden, was something important, but it was not clear how these refugees would be forced to stay in countries where they obviously did not want to stay, Gounev said.

"So, we must have a real system of incentives and restrictions to implement this idea for equal weight distribution," he said.

At the same time, the North and West European countries insisted on sharing the responsibility and burden in the adoption and integration of refugees, while Bulgaria insisted on sharing the burden in guarding the external borders, Gounev said.

Frontex, the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union (EU), had 30 employees in Bulgaria against 7,000 allocated by his country, Gounev said.

In addition, Bulgaria has spent tens of millions a year to guard the external borders of the EU against the 40 million euros (about 45 million U.S. dollars) given as European support for the next seven years.

"From our point of view, this is inadequate burden sharing," Gounev said.

He also thought that there was a serious political problem, because the visions of ruling parties and politicians in different countries were different, and changed quickly. To align these political visions would also be a great challenge, Gounev added.

On Sept. 8, Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister Rumiana Bachvarova said the attempts to find a well-functioning European solution have not given satisfactory results, and the search for new, effective solutions should be accelerated.

Bulgaria's position is that Europe needs a clear and firm common policy, which reflects the common solidarity and takes into account all aspects of the current situation and specifics in the different countries, Bachvarova said. Endit