Romania Opposes Mandatory EU Refugee Quotas

(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) Romanian Interior Minister Gabriel Oprea said on Monday that Bucharest will reject the European Commission’s plan for national quotas for refugees.

“I have a clear mandate from the president and from the prime minister to politely refuse the EC request” Oprea said before leaving for Brussels where EU interior ministers will hold a meeting on the refugee crisis.

“We will respect our initial agreement to take in 1785 migrants. That is the current capacity of Romania” he added.

Jean-Claude Juncker the president of the European Commission proposed a new plan last Wednesday for accepting 160000 refugees into the EU. The proposal presented to the European Parliament added another 40000 to an existing plan for quotas set in May.

Under the revised quotas Romania would receive 4646 incomers Bulgaria 1600 and Croatia 1064. The biggest quotas are given to Germany with 31443 refugees and France with 24031.

Besides the plan for national quotas Juncker said the Western Balkan states should be put on a list of safe countries of origin which means that people coming from these states will be classified strictly as economic migrants and cannot claim asylum.

Romania’s Supreme Defence Council is to decide this week how many refugees the country can accommodate but the number cannot exceed the current capacity of some 1785 places in six reception centres officials have said.

As yet Romania has not been hit by the wave of refugees of migrants crossing the Balkans towards Germany and northern Europe. Only 913 people have applied for asylum this year so far 12 per cent more than in 2014.