How can the European municipalities better face the refugee crisis?
Trigger asylum and refugee fund to help municipalities face the refugee crisis:
Much of the chaos and distress being seen in European countries especially the Southeast Europe, as Greece, Hungary, and other countries on the Western Balkans route are grappling with massive inflows of asylum seekers is caused by confusion about who exactly is in need of protection, who should be responsible for protection, and a lack of on-the-ground capacity to respond. The problem is conceptual, political and practical.
As part of ways to tackle the challenges of asylum in Europe, the European parliament on 13 March 2014; adopted Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF).
The AMIF includes measures to promote solidarity between Member States in the field of asylum, primarily by making specific funding available for refugee resettlement. Member States that receive resettled refugees submitted for resettlement consideration by UNHCR will be eligible for a lump sum of €6,000 per person arriving, rising to €10,000 per person for refugees from groups identified as priorities for EU resettlement. The ‘Union Resettlement Programme’, using the priority-setting framework established in the 2013 Joint EU Resettlement Programme, will determine priority refugee groups for European resettlement every two years during the period 2014-20. To be eligible to receive lump sums, Member States must pledge to receive specific numbers of refugees one year in advance of their programme being implemented. The European Commission and the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) will be jointly responsible, according to their respective competences, for monitoring the implementation of resettlement operations supported by the AMIF.
This fund has four specific objectives to achieve which are as follows:
- Asylum: strengthening and developing the Common European Asylum System by ensuring that EU legislation in this field is efficiently and uniformly applied;
- Legal migration and integration: supporting legal migration to EU States in line with the labour market needs and promoting the effective integration of non-EU nationals;
- Return: enhancing fair and effective return strategies, which contribute to combating irregular migration, with an emphasis on sustainability and effectiveness of the return process;
- Solidarity: making sure that EU States which are most affected by migration and asylum flows can count on solidarity from other EU States.
