"Obviously, this plan has failed and it failed due to the fact that other members are not ready to accommodate additional refugees," Claudio D’Amico said, adding that the questions of transportation costs and human rights issues were further stumbling blocks to the system's implementation.
Estimates released last week put at 86 the number of asylum seekers who entered Europe through Italy who have been relocated to Finland and Sweden, while another 30 refugees have been moved from Greece to Luxembourg since early October. The original quota system announced by Brussels in the spring envisioned relocating 40,000 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece to other EU member states over two years.
Earlier on Tuesday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said 141,000 migrants had arrived in Italy and 653,000 in Greece so far this year, exceeding last year’s total fourfold. Europe is in the midst of the biggest refugee crisis since World War II as it grapples with the wave of migrants crossing its borders.
European leaders must follow the recommendations of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA) and establish refugee camps closer to the migrants' countries of origin in Africa and the Middle East, Claudio D’Amico said.
"We think that European Union has to follow the OSCE resolution, approved by the OSCE PA in 2009-2010. According to this document, Europe has to organize refugee camps near the countries of refugees’ origins in Africa or in the Middle East and to support this relocation program financially," Claudio D’Amico said.
D’Amico stressed that free transit through EU member states, as exemplified by tens of thousands traveling through Hungary and other Balkan and Mediterranean routes to countries like Germany and Sweden this year, should be stopped.
"The migrants need to be admitted and their status of asylum seeker or economic migrants has to be investigated and determined in the first country of their entry to the EU," he added.
