European Parliament has asked European Union (EU) member countries to speed up fulfillment of their obligations to take in refugees, particularly unaccompanied minors.
The notice refers particularly to asylum-seekers stuck in Greece and Italy. Thus far, only Malta and Finland are on track for reaching target goals for number of refugees taken in, according to a press release on the Parliament website.
Although EU countries as a whole have agreed to take in 160,000 refugees from Greece and Italy by September, so far, they’ve helped less than 19,000 such individuals, the press release states.
Parliament has asked countries to focus priority on relocating the most vulnerable individuals, such as minors without families.
The press release also says that some member states have “very restrictive and discriminatory preferences, such as granting relocation only to single mothers or excluding applicants from specific nationalities, such as Eritreans, and applying very extensive security checks.”
Two member states have not participated in assistance thus far. Parliament also noted that even if goals are not met by September, member states will still have to accept eligible refugees, according to the release.
The EU adopted two measures to assist refugees two years ago.
