EU Betrays European Values by Refusing to Adopt Refugee Plan - NGO

The failure to agree on the relocation of 120,000 refugees across the European Union is a betrayal of Europe's common values by the leadership of the bloc, the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid (CEAR) told Sputnik on Tuesday.

MADRID (Sputnik) — The interior ministers of the European Union's member states failed to agree on a plan to relocate 120,000 refugees throughout the bloc’s 28 members on an equitable basis at an extraordinary meeting late on Monday.

"The European Union again betrays its values, as it does by putting border control above its international obligations on asylum and solidarity among member states," CEAR Secretary General Estrella Galan said.

The EU interior ministers did agree to redistribute 40,000 refugees, currently in Greece and Italy, as proposed by Brussels under the first emergency package in May.

According to Galan, this number is "ridiculous and cunning" compared to the number of refugees arriving in the European Union, while the inability of the EU states to agree on a broader refugee relocation plan threatens "the very spirit of the European project."

According to the CEAR secretary general, this political impasse also ignores the will of the local population who has repeatedly demonstrated its solidarity with those fleeing their war-torn countries.

A final decision on the 120,000 refugee relocation plan is now expected at a justice and home affairs council meeting on October 8 in Luxembourg.

Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have so far expressed their intention to reject the new migrant quota proposed by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker last week.

Unveiling the second emergency package last Wednesday, Juncker said nearly half a million migrants and asylum seekers were estimated to have entered Europe since the beginning of the year in what is termed the greatest refugee crisis since World War II.