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EU regions and cities call for more resources to handle reception of migrants
With more and more migrants arriving to the European Union via the Mediterranean, the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) stressed the crucial role of regions and cities in the integration process and urged all Member States to make more resources available to them. In a resolution approved on Wednesday by four of its five political groups, the CoR also called for greater solidarity among Member States to ensure the fair relocation of migrants across the EU.
Reacting to current EU plans on migration, the CoR - the EU's assembly of local and regional governments - adopted a resolution as part of its contribution to creating a "sustainable" EU approach to migration. It emphasised the pinnacle role played by regions and cities given many of them constitute a point of entry or transit for migrants and stressed that they are not equipped with sufficient resources to deal with the problem. Furthermore, it pointed out that these regions are dealing with a migration crisis that affects all of Europe, not only the Mediterranean. Therefore, the CoR called on all EU Member States to make more resources available to regions hosting a larger number of migrants. It also called to significantly step up cooperation with regions in the implementation of the emergency relocation mechanism that has been proposed by the European Commission.
This scheme is meant for Syrian and Eritrean nationals in need of international protection that arrive in either Italy or Greece and aims to relocate a total of 40 000 persons from these countries to other EU Member States over the next two years. The CoR emphasised that relocation and resettlement policies should involve all European countries taking into account specific criteria. Only the European Conservative Group (ECR) disagreed with the CoR's position on managing migrants in the EU. The CoR also made a joint call for solidarity of Member States to receive, relocate and resettle migrants arriving to the Mediterranean coasts.
The CoR also stressed that cooperation with stable governments in North Africa would help reduce departures from their coasts. Therefore, it called for a "crucial" allocation of funds for Member States with Mediterranean coasts. In addition, the CoR welcomes the Commission's timely revision of the so-called Dublin regulation, which aims to identify the State responsible for examining an asylum application, but has proven "impracticable". The CoR also stressed that asylum procedures must be shortened, as this would strengthen the citizens' confidence in the European asylum systems.
Furthermore, regions and cities welcomed the budget increase of €69.6 million approved by the European Parliament for the EU operations Triton, in Italy, and Poseidon, in Greece, whose capacities have been tripled to prevent the loss of additional lives in the Mediterranean. Given the effectiveness shown by both operations so far, the CoR also hoped that Member States would allocate and release additional resources as swiftly as possible.
In addition, regions and cities stressed the importance of the EU engaging with third countries in order to internally manage migration flows and strengthen these countries' capacity to save the lives of migrants in distress. Therefore the CoR called on Member States to dedicate at least 0.7% of their GDP to development cooperation and support in particular decentralised cooperation.
As part of this approach, the CoR also considered that it is important to create opportunities for non-EU nationals to come to Europe to work or study. Consequently, it stressed the importance of developing deeper cooperation with third countries and also providing information on the opportunities for legal migration to Europe.
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