The European Commission recently called for member states to increase the pace of their relocation efforts and fulfill political commitments to support the European Border and Coast Guard Agency in terms of manpower and equipment.
 
"Responsibility cannot be fairly shared without solidarity,” Dimitris Avramopoulos, commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, said in an announcement. “All our measures are interlinked, and member states cannot cherry-pick what they deliver on."
 
The calls come as relocation levels have reached their fastest pace yet, at 1,940 in February, but still fall below the European Council’s endorsed targets of 3,000 relocations from Greece and 1,500 from Italy each month.

The commission reiterated the need for shared responsibility and solidarity in supporting the fledgeling European Border and Coast Guard Agency and highlighted the successes of the European Union-Turkey Statement, which has reduced crossings but not yet managed to tamp them down enough to allow returns to outpace arrivals in Greece.
 
"To improve our management of migration we need to continue to implement our comprehensive approach – from relocation and resettlement, to the operationalisation of the European Border and Coast Guard and through continued engagement with Turkey,” Frans Timmermans, European Commission first vice president, said. “All these measures have the principle of solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility at their core – a principle that binds each member state."