The European Commission will provide financial support to member states that have collectively pledged to offer more than 30,000 resettlement places in 2020, EU leaders announced on Wednesday at the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva, as part of broader plans to create safe pathways for refugees to enter Europe
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th December, 2019) The European Commission will provide financial support to member states that have collectively pledged to offer more than 30,000 resettlement places in 2020, EU leaders announced on Wednesday at the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva, as part of broader plans to create safe pathways for refugees to enter Europe."Resettlement is a European success story and must remain so. The European Union's Member States are making the largest collective pledge of resettlement places they have ever done. This makes the EU the biggest contributor to resettlement efforts worldwide - though we would hope more would follow suit and increase their pledges to match the growing needs," European Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas said in the statement.
The European Commission announced that 65,000 refugees have been resettled through the EU scheme since 2015. The proposals for 2020 will prioritize relocating vulnerable people currently residing in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Libya and Tunisia, on the basis of recommendations made by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
The most recent proposals will go a small way to address the significant numbers of people seeking asylum in the European Union. In August, the EU statistical office, Eurostat, estimated that European states had a backlog of 900,000 asylum cases that are still being processed.
Eurostat also reported on Tuesday that the number of first-time asylum applications filed in the European Union has increased 12 percent in the third quarter of 2019. Over 166,000 first-time asylum-seekers applied for protection in the EU from July to September.
Ursula von der Leyen, the new president of the European Commission, has placed a high priority on tackling Europe's migration issues. The EU currently allocates 10,000 Euros ($11,123) per resettled refugee to member states that participate in the resettlement scheme.
The Global Refugee Forum is currently being held in the Swiss city of Geneva. Political officials, business leaders and NGO advocates are meeting to discuss pathways to find solutions for the increasing number of refugees. UNHCR reported in June that the number of displaced people globally is currently at a record high, as 71 million people have been forced to leave their homes due to violence, persecution or climate change.
