Refugee Flow Jumps 50% as EU Mulls Asylum Plans
African immigrants have been using Libya as a jumping-off point to reach Europe
An increase of almost 50 percent in the number of refugees in the European Union lent urgency to plans for a common asylum and immigration system that are already drawing fire from Britain.
EU governments sheltered 185,000 political refugees in 2014, with the biggest numbers going to Germany, Sweden, France and Italy, the EU statistics office said on Tuesday in Luxembourg.
Britain, which is fifth on the list, with 14,000 offers of asylum, is balking at a EU-wide system due to be proposed Wednesday, with Prime Minister David Cameron’s newly re-elected government saying it won’t cede control of U.K. borders.
“We will not participate in any legislation imposing a mandatory system of resettlement or relocation,” the Home Office in London said in a statement Monday. Past attempts to coordinate European asylum policy have made little headway.
The latest effort is tied up with Britain’s bid to rework its membership in the EU, with Cameron intending to hold an in-or-out membership referendum by 2017. British officials argue that the threat of a departure gives the U.K. leverage.
Other countries have their own grievances and claims to special treatment. Sweden, for example, admitted 33,000 refugees last year, making it the most welcoming country relative to its population.
Repression, War
Asylum numbers have more than doubled since the Arab revolutions of 2011, when glimmers of democracy across northern Africa and the Middle East gave way in many place to repression and civil war.
About 68,000 refugees from Syria fled across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe last year, the single largest group, the EU data showed. People escaping Eritrea were next on the list, followed by Afghanistan.
EU governments are also working on emergency steps to cope with refugees coming through politically anarchic Libya, often loaded onto barely seaworthy boats by human-trafficking gangs.
In the worst of many catastrophes at sea, a refugee boat capsized off the Libyan coast last month, drowning at least 700 people. Britain and France are leading efforts to pass a United Nations Security Council resolution permitting EU military action against smugglers.
EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini gave few public details of the military plans Monday after speaking to the Security Council in New York. Russia, armed with a Security Council veto, has indicated it won’t allow EU navies to destroy boats used by traffickers.
While expecting a resolution in the “reasonable future,” Mogherini said the EU can take steps “in full respect of international law” before a UN vote.