The first refugees left Greece on Wednesday under the second phase of a troubled plan to share out migrants among EU members as the number of people entering Europe illegally this year reached 800,000.
Thirty refugees were given a VIP sendoff from Athens airport before flying to Luxembourg where they will begin a new life.
They are the first to be relocated from Greece under EU plans, fiercely contested by some conservative governments, to redistribute nearly 160,000 migrants from countries on the frontlines of Europe’s migrant crisis, namely Greece, Italy and Hungary.
At the airport, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said the six Syrian and Iraqi families were making “a trip to hope.”
“Today they have the opportunity to make… a better life,” Tsipras, who was flanked by Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, EU migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos and European Parliament chief Martin Schulz, said.
“It’s a drop in the ocean, but we hope the drop will become a stream and then a river of humanity.”
His remarks came after Fabrice Leggeri, head of the EU’s Frontex border agency said 800,000 people had entered the EU illegally this year, telling Germany’s Bild newspaper the influx had probably not “reached its peak”.
The need for a solution to Europe’s biggest refugee crisis since World War II is becoming increasingly urgent, with dozens more drowning in the last week — including many children — while trying to cross the sea from Turkey to Greece.
“The human sacrifice that shames European civilisation must stop,” said Tsipras, whose country saw more than 200,000 people reaching its shores last month alone, UN figures show.
– EU rift –
The relocation scheme got under way in Italy on October 9 after a bitter debate that split the 28-nation bloc along east-west lines, between former Soviet bloc nations that rejected migrant quotas and countries like Germany and Sweden that are bearing the brunt of the influx.
So far only 117 refugees have benefitted from the scheme.
Speaking in Berlin, the head of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), Antonio Guterres, reiterated that the migrant emergency was “not a German crisis” but a “European crisis” and appealed for greater EU-wide solidarity.
Sweden, which is expecting up to 190,000 asylum seekers this year appealed for some of its intake to also be relocated.
“Sweden has taken a disproportionately large responsibility in comparison with other countries in the EU, and now we are extremely strained,” Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said in a statement.
“It is time that other countries take responsibility and that is why the government requires redistribution of refugees from Sweden.”
Sweden is reportedly keen to tap into Hungary’s relocation quota after the central European country — mainly a country of transit for migrants — refused the EU’s offer to relieve it of 54,000 arrivals on procedural grounds.
Hungary has sealed its southern borders to deter migrants from crossing its territory on their journey westward. Neighbouring Austria has also proposed tightening its asylum rules.
Lawmakers in Vienna on Tuesday tabled a bill proposing that anyone granted asylum would be reassessed after three years and sent back home if their country of origin was deemed safe.
EU members have also stepped up action against people smugglers.
German police on Wednesday arrested the suspected head of a smuggling syndicate while French authorities detained eight people, including a fisherman, on suspicion of ferrying fee-paying migrants across the Channel to Britain.
– Turkey’s role –
The crisis has also put the spotlight on Turkey, the gateway to the Mediterranean for hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing war-torn Syria and Iraq.
Tsipras on Wednesday said he would visit Turkey to discuss “more substantial cooperation” over the refugee crisis.
The EU last month announced a refugee cooperation deal with Turkey including a possible three billion euros ($3.3 billion) in aid for the more than two million Syrians on Turkish soil, but Ankara has since played down expectations that it will act to stem the outflow.