European Court Of Justice Rejects Legal Action Against Refugees.
The European Union's highest court has dismissed complaints raised by Slovakia and Hungary against a mandatory quota to accept asylum seekers, established as part of efforts to resettle arriving refugees more equally across the bloc.
EU countries agreed in September 2015, at the height of Europe's migrant crisis, to relocate 160,000 refugees from Greece and Italy over two years. Yet, only approximately 27,700 people have been moved so far.
Hungary and Slovakia's legal action, which was seeking to have the refugee-sharing scheme annulled, was struck out on the grounds that current EU policy is "proportionate", a European Court of Justice (ECJ) statement said on Wednesday.
The long-awaited ruling added: "The mechanism actually contributes to enabling Greece and Italy to deal with the impact of the 2015 migration crisis."
The court's decision is final, and is not open to appeal. As a result, European Commission (EC) officials will continue to be able to order member state governments to take in specific quotas of refugees entering the bloc, or risk facing fines.
EU REFUGEE-SHARING SCHEME.
125,240 refugees have made the Mediterranean crossing to Europe so far this year - mainly to Italy and Greece.
That is significantly down on the 2016 total of 362,753 and a massive drop compared to the 1,015,078 who arrived by sea during 2015.
That reduction has helped ease the pressure on Italy and Greece, but political strains are still evident.
At the height of the crisis, in 2015, EU leaders forced through a vote to relocate up to 160,000 refugees from Italy and Greece to new homes spread around the EU member states.
It was a bitterly contested policy. Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia all voted against a compulsory relocation scheme but they were over-ruled.
The UK used a legal exemption to opt out of the scheme. A month after the vote, Poland elected a new right-wing government which promptly refused to cooperate with the EU plan.
But in reality, the prediction of 160,000 turned out to be an overestimate.
Only around 35,000 asylum seekers were actually eligible for relocation - because although Syrians and Eritreans, for example, qualify for asylum, Nigerians for example do not.
To date, approximately 27,000 of the eligible refugees have now been relocated. That's more than 75 percent, but countries' willingness to participate remains patchy.
Malta, Latvia and also Norway have taken in their full quota of refugees from Greece.
Finland, Lithuania and Luxembourg have achieved more than 80 percent of their quotas.
Austria, Hungary and Poland still have not accepted any asylum seekers.
Czech Republic has not relocated anyone since August 2016. Slovakia has taken in just 16 refugees and Liechtenstein just 10.
'Stick to the ruling'
The verdict was welcomed by top European officials.
"ECJ confirms relocation scheme valid. Time to work in unity and implement solidarity in full," said EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos.
Ska Keller, the lead parliamentarian on the scheme, said the verdict means "there is no excuse" for EU states not to share refugees from Greece and Italy as they have committed to do.
German officials were also quick to announce their support for the ruling, with Sigmar Gabriel, the foreign minister, encouraging member states to act swiftly following the decision.
"It is right to clarify questions legally if there is doubt. But now we can expect all European partners to stick to the ruling and implement the agreements without delay," he said.
'Appaling and irresonsible'
Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico said his country respected the court's judgement, adding, however, that its critical stance on the quota system and the migrants "has not changed at all".
"We will continue to work on having solidarity expressed in different ways other than forcing [on us] migrants from other countries that don't want to be here anyway," he said.
Yet, Hungary strongly condemned the ECJ's verdict.
Peter Szijjartom, the nation's foreign minister, claimed the decision was made on political rather than legal considerations and "jeopardises the security and future of all of Europe".
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